“Dear father,” cried Violet, putting herself before him, “it is true what I have been telling you!  This is our little snow-girl, and she cannot live any longer than while she breathes the cold west-wind.  Do not make her come into the hot room!”

“Yes, father,” shouted Peony, stamping his little foot, so mightily was he in earnest, “this be nothing but our ’ittle snow-child!  She will not love the hot fire!”

“Nonsense, children, nonsense, nonsense!” cried the father, half vexed, half laughing at what he considered their foolish obstinacy.  “Run into the house, this moment!  It is too late to play any longer, now.  I must take care of this little girl immediately, or she will catch her death a-cold!”

“Husband! dear husband!” said his wife, in a low voice—­for she had been looking narrowly at the snow-child, and was more perplexed than ever—­there is something very singular in all this.  “You will think me foolish—­but—­but—­may it not be that some invisible angel has been attracted by the simplicity and good faith with which our children set about their undertaking?  May he not have spent an hour of his immortality in playing with those dear little souls? and so the result is what we call a miracle.  No, no!  Do not laugh at me; I see what a foolish thought it is!”

“My dear wife,” replied the husband, laughing heartily, “you are as much a child as Violet and Peony.”

And in one sense so she was, for all through life she had kept her heart full of childlike simplicity and faith, which was as pure and clear as crystal; and, looking at all matters through this transparent medium, she sometimes saw truths so profound, that other people laughed at them as nonsense and absurdity.

But now kind Mr. Lindsey had entered the garden, breaking away from his two children, who still sent their shrill voices after him, beseeching him to let the snow-child stay and enjoy herself in the cold west-wind.  As he approached, the snow-birds took to flight.  The little white damsel, also, fled backward, shaking her head, as if to say, “Pray, do not touch me!” and roguishly, as it appeared, leading him through the deepest of the snow.  Once, the good man stumbled, and floundered down upon his face, so that, gathering himself up again, with the snow sticking to his rough pilot-cloth sack, he looked as white and wintry as a snow-image of the largest size.  Some of the neighbours, meanwhile, seeing him from their windows, wondered what could possess poor Mr. Lindsey to be running about his garden in pursuit of a snow-drift, which the west-wind was driving hither and thither!  At length, after a vast deal of trouble, he chased the little stranger into a corner, where she could not possibly escape him.  His wife had been looking on, and, it being nearly twilight, was wonderstruck to observe how the snow-child gleamed and sparkled, and how she seemed to shed a glow all round about her; and when driven into the corner, she positively glistened like a star!  It was a frosty kind of brightness, too like that of an icicle in the moonlight.  The wife thought it strange that good Mr. Lindsey should see nothing remarkable in the snow-child’s appearance.