THE SNOW-IMAGE
BY NATHANIEL HAWTHORNE
One afternoon of a cold winter’s day, when the sun shone forth with chilly brightness, after a long storm, two children asked leave of their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow.
The elder child was a little girl, whom, because she was of a tender and modest disposition, and was thought to be very beautiful, her parents and other people who were familiar with her used to call Violet.
But her brother was known by the title of Peony, on account of the ruddiness of his broad and round little phiz, which made everybody think of sunshine and great scarlet flowers.
“Yes, Violet—yes, my little Peony,” said their kind mother; “you may go and play in the snow.”
Forth sallied the two children, with a hop-skip-and-jump that carried them at once into the very heart of a huge snowdrift, whence Violet emerged like a snow bunting, while little Peony floundered out with his round face in full bloom.
Then what a merry time had they! To look at them frolicking in the wintry garden, you would have thought that the dark and pitiless storm had been sent for no other purpose but to provide a new plaything for Violet and Peony; and that they themselves had been created, as the snowbirds were, to take delight only in the tempest and in the white mantle which it spread over the earth.