shaping out the image, she had given it a gentle pat with her
hand, and had neglected to smooth the impression quite away.

"After all, husband," said the mother, recurring to her idea that
the angels would be as much delighted to play with Violet and
Peony as she herself was,--"after all, she does look strangely
like a snow-image! I do believe she is made of snow!"

A puff of the west-wind blew against the snow-child, and again
she sparkled like a star.

"Snow!" repeated good Mr. Lindsey, drawing the reluctant guest
over his hospitable threshold. "No wonder she looks like snow.
She is half frozen, poor little thing! But a good fire will put
everything to rights!"

Without further talk, and always with the same best intentions,
this highly benevolent and common-sensible individual led the
little white damsel--drooping, drooping, drooping, more and more
out of the frosty air, and into his comfortable parlor. A
Heidenberg stove, filled to the brim with intensely burning
anthracite, was sending a bright gleam through the isinglass of
its iron door, and causing the vase of water on its top to fume
and bubble with excitement. A warm, sultry smell was diffused
throughout the room. A thermometer on the wall farthest from the
stove stood at eighty degrees. The parlor was hung with red
curtains, and covered with a red carpet, and looked just as warm
as it felt. The difference betwixt the atmosphere here and the
cold, wintry twilight out of doors, was like stepping at once
from Nova Zembla to the hottest part of India, or from the North