of their fur coats and shivered, and went on scolding and jeering at
each other.

"Oh, you ugly mug, dirty nose! What sort of a housekeeper will you
make?"

"And what about you, boasting one? You know nothing but how to gad
about and lick your own face. We'll soon see which of us he'll take."

And the two girls went on wrangling and wrangling till they began to
freeze in good earnest.

Suddenly they cried out together,--

"Devil take these bridegrooms for being so long in coming! You have
turned blue all over."

And together they replied, shivering,--

"No bluer than yourself, tooth-chatterer."

And Frost, not so far away, crackled and laughed, and leapt from fir
tree to fir tree, crackling as he came.

The girls heard that some one was coming through the forest.

"Listen! there's some one coming. Yes, and with bells on his sledge!"

"Shut up, you slut! I can't hear, and the frost is taking the skin off
me."