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But Violet and Peony seized their father by the hand.

“No,” they cried. “This is our little snow girl, and she needs the cold west wind to breathe.”

Their mother spoke, too. “There is something very strange about this,” she said. “Could it be a miracle come to the children through their faith in their play?”

The father laughed. “You are as much a child as Violet and Peony,” he said. Then he reached out his hand to draw the snow child into the house.

As he approached the snowbirds took to flight. He followed the snow child into a corner where she could not possibly escape. It was wonderful how she gleamed and sparkled and seemed to shed a glow all around her. She glistened like a star, or like an icicle in the moonlight.

“Come, you odd little thing,” cried the honest man, seizing the snow child by her hand. “I have caught you at last and will make you comfortable in spite of yourself. We will put a nice new pair of stockings on your feet and you shall have a warm shawl to wrap yourself in. Your poor little nose, I am afraid, is frost bitten. But we will make it all right. Come along in.”

So he led the snow child toward the house. She followed him, drooping and reluctant. All the glow and sparkle were gone from her.

“After all,” said the mother, “she does look as if she were made of snow.”

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

“That is because she is half frozen, poor little thing!” said the father. “Here we are where it is warm!”

Sad and drooping looked the little white maiden as she stood on the hearth rug. The heat of the stove struck her like a pestilence. She looked wistfully toward the windows and caught a glimpse, through its red curtains, of the snow-covered roofs, the frosty stars and the delicious intensity of the cold night.

The mother had gone in search of the shawl and stockings, and Violet and Peony looked with terror at their little snow sister.

“I am going to find her parents,” said the father, but he had scarcely reached the gate when he heard the children scream. He saw their mother’s white face at the window.

“There is no need of going for the child’s parents,” she said.

There was no trace of the little white maiden, unless it were a heap of snow which, while they were gazing at it, melted quite away upon the hearth rug.

“What a quantity of snow the children brought in on their feet,” their father said at last. “It has made quite a puddle here before the stove.”

The stove, through the isinglass of its door, seemed to grin like a red-eyed demon at the mischief which it had done, for the story of the snow image is one of those rare cases where common sense finds itself at fault.