eony?"

"O yes!" cried Peony. "And I will hug her and she shall sit down
close by me, and drink some of my warm milk!"

"O no, Peony!" answered Violet, with grave wisdom. "That will not do
at all. Warm milk will not be wholesome for our little snow-sister.
Little snow-people, like her, eat nothing but icicles. No, no, Peony;
we must not give her anything warm to drink!"

There was a minute or two of silence; for Peony, whose short legs were
never weary, had gone on a pilgrimage again to the other side of the
garden. All of a sudden, Violet cried out, loudly and joyfully--

"Look here, Peony! Come quickly! A light has been shining on her cheek
out of that rose-coloured cloud! and the colour does not go away! Is
not that beautiful!"

"Yes; it is beau-ti-ful," answered Peony, pronouncing the three
syllables with deliberate accuracy. "O Violet, only look at her hair!
It is all like gold!"

"O, certainly," said Violet, with tranquillity, as if it were very
much a matter of course. "That colour, you know, comes from the golden
clouds, that we see up there in the sky. She is almost finished now.
But her lips must be made very red--redder than her cheeks. Perhaps,
Peony, it will make them red if we both kiss them!"

Accordingly, the mother heard two smart little smacks, as if both her
children were kissing the snow-image on its frozen mouth. But, as this
did not seem to make the lips quite red enough, Violet next proposed
that the snow-child should be invited to kiss Peony's scarlet cheek.

"Come, 'ittle snow-sister, kiss me!" cried Peony.

"There! she has kissed you," added Violet, "and her lips are very red.
And she blushed a little, too!"

"O, what a cold kiss!" cried Peony.

Just then, there came a breeze of the pure west-wind, sweeping
through the garden and rattling the parlour-windows. It sounded so
wintry cold, that the mother was about to tap on the window-pane with
her thimbled finger, to summon the two children in, when they both
cried out to her with one voice. The tone was not a tone of surprise,
although they were evidently a good deal excited; it appeared rather
as if they were very much rejoiced at some event that had now
happened, but which they had been looking for, and had reckoned upon
all along.

"Mamma! mamma! We have finished our little snow-sister, and she is
running about the garden with us!"

"What imaginative little beings my children are!" thought the mother,
putting the last few sti