“Suppose we drag one of the rustic chairs under a tree and make a sitting-down figure of a girl,” said Marion, who was rosy and happy in the out-door sport which reminded her of home.
“Capital! the chair will help to hold her up. Let’s have her a queen and fix up an ice crown,” said Katie.
Edna, who systematically sneered at whatever proposal Marion made, laughed at the idea, but no one seemed to notice her disapproval, and soon she, too, grew interested and helped.
They had to get Edward’s help to dig the chair out of the snow that quite buried it, and set it against a large-trunked maple. Then they worked with a will, till they had made a very fair semblance of a large woman sitting down, with her skirts spread out and her arms resting on the arms of the chair.
“Whoever best understands the mysterious science of noses shall put that important feature on Queen Blanche’s pale face,” said Lily, whose own face, from exertion, was red as a peony.
“I think, as Edna draws best of any of us, and molds such pretty things in clay, she had better give the White Queen a nose,” said Marion, timidly; and for once, so soothing is flattery, Edna was pleased, and smiled quite graciously upon her, and succeeded, after several efforts, in turning out a very good nose. She changed the expression of the whole face, too, by some deft smoothing and judicious molding, and no one present had ever seen a snow-form that was half so pretty as this when it was finished.
“Make her majesty a crown of stiff writing-paper and scatter water on it,” said Lily.
“O, yes; and let’s borrow an old sheet if we can, and pin it around her neck like a royal robe, and then make it sopping wet and sprinkle snow on it,” said Marion. “It will freeze stiff in the night and look as if it was made of snow.”
Both suggestions were eagerly carried out, and then Mrs. Abbott was called to the window to see the really majestic statue of snow. She expressed great admiration, and Elfie, who was bundled up to the tip of her little red nose, pranced around in wild delight, believing herself to have been an important assistant in making the image.
The next morning at recess the girls all ran out to visit the White Queen, whose beauty had so much improved by time and frost that she really was marvelous. The sun was shining very clearly, but the weather was bitingly cold, and there was every prospect that the statue would retain its fair form for some time. The robe and crown, now frozen stiff, looked as if they too were made entirely of snow.