The common-sensible man placed the snow-child on the hearth-rug, right in front of the hissing and fuming stove.

“Now she will be comfortable!” cried Mr. Lindsey, rubbing his hands and looking about him, with the pleasantest smile you ever saw.  “Make yourself at home, my child.”

Sad, sad and drooping, looked the little white maiden, as she stood on the hearth-rug, with the hot blast of the stove striking through her like a pestilence.  Once, she threw a glance wistfully toward the windows, and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, and the stars glimmering frostily, and all the delicious intensity of the cold night.  The bleak wind rattled the window-panes, as if it were summoning her to come forth.  But there stood the snow-child, drooping, before the hot stove!

But the common-sensible man saw nothing amiss.

“Come, wife,” said he, “let her have a pair of thick stockings and a woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm supper as soon as the milk boils.  You, Violet and Peony, amuse your little friend.  She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a strange place.  For my part, I will go around among the neighbours, and find out where she belongs.”

The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings; for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.  Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlour-door carefully behind him.  Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a thimbled finger against the parlour window.

“Husband! husband!” cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face through the window-panes.  “There is no need of going for the child’s parents!”

“We told you so, father!” screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered the parlour.  “You would bring her in; and now our poor—­dear—­beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!”

And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children might be going to thaw too!  In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an explanation of his wife.  She could only reply, that, being summoned to the parlour by the cries of Violet and Peony, she found no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were the remains of a heap of snow, which, while she was gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth-rug.

“And there you see all that is left of it!” added she, pointing to a pool of water, in front of the stove.