Indeed, it was an exceedingly pleasant sight, those bright little souls at their task!  Moreover, it was really wonderful to observe how knowingly and skilfully they managed the matter.  Violet assumed the chief direction, and told Peony what to do, while, with her own delicate fingers, she shaped out all the nicer parts of the snow-figure.  It seemed, in fact, not so much to be made by the children, as to grow up under their hands, while they were playing and prattling about it.  Their mother was quite surprised at this; and the longer she looked, the more and more surprised she grew.

“What remarkable children mine are!” thought she, smiling with a mother’s pride; and, smiling at herself, too, for being so proud of them.  “What other children could have made anything so like a little girl’s figure out of snow at the first trial?  Well; but now I must finish Peony’s new frock, for his grandfather is coming to-morrow, and I want the little fellow to look handsome.”

So she took up the frock, and was soon as busily at work again with her needle as the two children with their snow-image.  But still, as the needle travelled hither and thither through the seams of the dress, the mother made her toil light and happy by listening to the airy voices of Violet and Peony.  They kept talking to one another all the time, their tongues being quite as active as their feet and hands.  Except at intervals, she could not distinctly hear what was said, but had merely a sweet impression that they were in a most loving mood, and were enjoying themselves highly, and that the business of making the snow-image went prosperously on.  Now and then, however, when Violet and Peony happened to raise their voices, the words were as audible as if they had been spoken in the very parlour, where the mother sat.  O how delightfully those words echoed in her heart, even though they meant nothing so very wise or wonderful, after all!

But you must know a mother listens with her heart, much more than with her ears; and thus she is often delighted with the trills of celestial music, when other people can hear nothing of the kind.

“Peony, Peony!” cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another part of the garden, “bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling.  I want it to shape our little snow-sister’s bosom with.  You know that part must be quite pure, just as it came out of the sky!”

“Here it is, Violet!” answered Peony, in his bluff tone—­but a very sweet tone, too—­as he came floundering through the half-trodden drifts.  “Here is the snow for her little bosom.  O Violet, how beau-ti-ful she begins to look!”

“Yes,” said Violet, thoughtfully and quietly; “our snow-sister does look very lovely.  I did not quite know, Peony, that we could make such a sweet little girl as this.”