suffering everything, and my not having one visit back," grumbled the
Snow Man. But he stood still; he never took a step forward after Dame
Louisa had set her bonnet on fire.

It was lucky Dame Louisa had worn a worsted scarf tied over her
bonnet, and could now use it for a bonnet.

The cold was intense, and had it not been that Dame Penny and Dame
Louisa both wore their Bay State shawls over their beaver sacques, and
their stone-marten tippets and muffs, and blue worsted stockings
drawn over their shoes, they would certainly have frozen. As for the
children, they would never have reached home alive if it had not been
for the pails and tubs of water.

"Do you feel as if you were thawing?" Dame Louisa asked the children
after they had left the Snow Man behind.

"Yes, ma'am," said they.

Dame Louisa drove as fast as she could, with thankful tears running
down her cheeks. "I've been a wicked, cross old woman," said she again
and again, "and that is what blasted my Christmas-trees."

It was the dawn of Christmas-day when they came in sight of Dame
Louisa's house.

"Oh! what is that twinkling out in the yard?" cried the children.

They could all see little fairy-like lights twinkling out in Dame
Louisa's yard.