"How can I walk?" said Rosy, tottering around when she was finally equipped in her narrow uncomfortable garments.
"Sh-h! the company is arriving!" said her hostess; and as there was no furniture, not even a chair, Rosy wondered where the company would sit. The company solved this difficulty by sitting on the floor; and then trays were handed around, containing all sorts of wonderful sweetmeats, flowers and fruits in lovely colors, with conserved fruits, sugared beans, and candy fish, animals, and birds. Each dainty was more tempting than the one before, and Rosy found the loose front of her Japanese gown the very thing for a "party-pocket," if any of you know what that means!
Next came games; "Lady-go-to-see," "Sick man-and-doctor," Alphabet-cards, and Proverbs; and then, more sweetmeats. Pleasant as it was, a sudden stop was put to the entertainment, by a commotion, everybody seizing hold of another, all with frightened faces. Without warning, an earthquake came and turned the house upside down. Everybody fell out on the ground but Rosy, who flew up in the air, becoming entangled in the tail of a huge man-kite, carried along by the wind at a fearful rate of speed.
Rosy thought this much more exciting than any coasting down hill she had ever tried; and she flew up, up, until the tail of the kite gave a flop, tossing her through a rift in the clouds. There she was, passing again through the bottom of the porcelain-jar, and in another moment she had landed in the very centre of the bear-skin hearth-rug.
Rosy was just getting her breath, and wondering how she came to have her hair hanging in the usual tawny stream, when, to her great surprise, the bear-skin began to move.
"Hold on tight there. We are off," it said, in a low growling tone, though not unkindly. "Want to go to a party, hey? Well, I'll see what we can do for you in my part of the world."
"Really you take one so unpleasantly by surprise," exclaimed poor Rosy, as she felt herself again setting forth on an airy journey. "It is so cold here, I wish you had let me stop for my seal-skin jacket."
"Don't talk about seal-skins, child. We are going where you will see enough of them. Ho! but it's grand there, up among the icebergs and the everlasting snow-drifts, where the frozen lakes gleam like red jewels in the light of the sun that never sets! Merry sports you'll see between my brothers and sisters!"
"But I should be dreadfully afraid of them," began Rosy, trembling. "I have never met any bears outside of cages;" but the words were frozen on her tongue, and some tears coming into her eyes rolled in little round icicles into her lap.
Now they came to a world of ice and snow. Even the fir-trees were no longer seen. Clinging to the rocks was a little rough moss, which served for reindeers' food. All else was chill and glittering—the sky arched with radiant pink that seemed to palpitate. Far below them was a polar sea, locking in chill embrace a lonely ship, her shrouds sheathed in ice, her ribs cracked against the huge silvery bulk of an iceberg, on whose jagged side she leaned despairingly—no sign of life on board. Rosy shuddered and shut her eyes, only opening them again when the bear-skin set her down at the side of an odd little hut, built on a barren point of land above the ice-bound water.