But the snow-man was gliding, shambling, shuffling toward the window. He opened it, passed out, put his head back into the room, and continued to beckon to her.
Kitty jumped down to see what it meant. “I must put something on, or I shall catch cold,” she remarked, glancing down at her night-gown; but as her feet touched the ground she perceived that she was ready dressed.
“How won—” she began; then she paused, with her mouth open, looking at something much more extraordinary. Just outside her window spread a spacious flight of steps. Lovely stairs, white as pearl! On one side they towered upward, gleaming brighter and brighter till they touched the moon; on the other, they reached downward, till it made her dizzy to look. Far down as she could see the great white stairs reached.
As Kitty stood on the ledge of her window, voices sounded around her; she thought she heard her mother’s voice, her father’s voice, nurse’s voice, calling: “Cure Johnnie! cure Johnnie!”
A bell pealed from the church steeple; it seemed to call out: “Cure Johnnie!”
Then other voices came again, floating along down or up the white stairs, she could not tell which, whispering:
“Find the blue rose! Find the blue rose!”
Was she to go up, or was she to go down those white stairs?
The snow-man began to go down; Kitty followed him.
“Hurry! hurry!” he panted impatiently. “I am beginning to melt. There is a great drop on my nose.”