"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.