"Who is this child?" the mother asked. "Does she live near us?"
Violet laughed that her mother could not understand so clear a matter. "This is our little snow sister," she said, "whom we have just been making."
At that instant a flock of snowbirds came flitting through the air. As was very natural, they avoided Violet and Peony. But—and this looked strange—they flew at once to the white-robed child, lighted on her shoulder, and seemed to claim her as their friend.
The little snow image was as glad to see these birds, old Winter's grandchildren, as they were to see her, and she welcomed them by holding out both of her hands. They tried to all alight on her ten small fingers and thumbs, crowding one another with a great fluttering of wings. One snowbird nestled close to her heart and another put its bill to her lips.
Just then the garden gate was thrown open and the children's father came in. A fur cap was drawn down over his ears and the thickest of gloves covered his hands. He had been working all day and was glad to get home. He smiled as he saw the children and their mother. His heart was tender, but his head was as hard and impenetrable as one of the iron pots that he sold in his hardware shop. At once, though, he perceived the little white stranger, playing in the garden, like a dancing snow wraith with the flock of snowbirds fluttering around her head.
"What little girl is that," he asked, "out in such bitter weather in a flimsy white gown and those thin slippers?"
"I don't know," the mother said. "The children say she is nothing but a snow image that they have been making this afternoon."
As she said this, the mother glanced toward the spot where the children's snow image had been made. There was no trace of it—no piled-up heap of snow—nothing save the prints of little footsteps around a vacant space!
"Nonsense!" said the father in his kind, matter-of-fact way. "This little stranger must be brought in out of the snow. We will take her into the parlor, and you shall give her a supper of warm bread and milk and make her as comfortable as you can."
But Violet and Peony seized their father by the hand.