"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."

The mother, as she listened, thought how fit and delightful an
incident it would be, if fairies, or, still better, if angel-children
were to come from paradise, and play invisibly with her own darlings,
and help them to make their snow-image, giving it the features of
celestial babyhood! Violet and Peony would not be aware of their
immortal playmates--only they could see that the image grew very
beautiful while they worked at it, and would think that they
themselves had done it all.

"My little girl and boy deserve such playmates, if mortal children
ever did!" said the mother to herself; and then she smiled again at
her own motherly pride.

Nevertheless, the ideas seized upon her imagination; and ever and