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The children looked at each other and shook harder than they had done with cold.

“I’m–afraid our mothers–wouldn’t–like to have us,” stammered the oldest boy.

“Nonsense,” cried the Snow Man. “Here I have been visiting you, time and time again, and stood whole days out in your front yards, and you’ve never been to see me. I think it is about time that I had some return. Come along.” With that the Snow Man seized the right ear of the oldest boy between a finger and thumb, and danced him along, and all the rest, trembling, and whimpering under their breaths, followed.

It was not long before they reached the Snow Man’s house, which was really quite magnificent: a castle built of blocks of ice fitted together like bricks, and with two splendid snow-lions keeping guard at the entrance. The Snow Man’s wife stood in the door, and the Snow Children stood behind her and peeped around her skirts; they were smiling from ear to ear. They had never seen any company before, and they were so delighted that they did not know what to do.

“We have some company, wife,” shouted the Snow Man.

“Bring them right in,” said his wife with a beaming face. She was very handsome, with beautiful pink cheeks and blue eyes, and she wore a trailing white robe, like a queen. She kissed the children all around, and shivers crept down their backs, for it was like being kissed by an icicle. “Kiss your company, my dears,” she said to the Snow Children, and they came bashfully forward and kissed Dame Penny’s scholars with these same chilly kisses.

“Now,” said the Snow Man’s wife, “come right in and sit down where it is cool–you look very hot.”

“Hot,” when the poor scholars were quite stiff with cold! They looked at one another in dismay, but did not dare say anything. They followed the Snow Man’s wife into her grand parlor.

“Come right over here by the north window where it is cooler,” said she, “and the children shall bring you some fans.”

The Snow Children floated up with fans–all the Snow Man’s family had a lovely floating gait–and the scholars took them with feeble curtesies, and began fanning. A stiff north wind blew in at the windows. The forest was all creaking and snapping with the cold. The poor children, fanning themselves, on an ice divan, would certainly have frozen if the Snow Man’s wife had not suggested that they all have a little game of “puss-in-the-corner,” to while away the time before dinner. That warmed them up a little, for they had to run very fast indeed to play with the Snow Children who seemed to fairly blow in the north wind from corner to corner.

But the Snow Man’s wife stopped the play a little before dinner was announced; she said the guests looked so warm that she was alarmed, and was afraid they might melt.

A whistle, that sounded just like the whistle of the north wind in the chimney, blew for dinner, and Dame Penny’s scholars thought with delight that now they would have something warm. But every dish on the Snow Man’s table was cold and frozen, and the Snow Man’s wife kept urging them to eat this and that, because it was so nice and cooling, and they looked so warm.

After dinner they were colder than ever, even. Another game of “puss-in-the-corner” did not warm them much; they were glad when the Snow Man’s wife suggested that they go to bed, for they had visions of warm blankets and comfortables. But when they were shown into the great north chamber, that was more like a hall than a chamber, with its walls of solid ice, its ice floor and its ice beds, their hearts sank. Not a blanket nor comfortable was to be seen; there were great silk bags stuffed with snow flakes instead of feathers on the beds, and that was all.