One afternoon of a cold winter's day, after a long storm, two children asked for permission from their mother to run out and play in the new-fallen snow.

"Yes, Violet,--yes, my little Peony," said their kind mother, "you may go out and play in the new snow."

Accordingly, the good lady dressed up her darlings in woollen jackets, and gave them a kiss.

What a happy time they had! To look at them, playing in the winter-like garden, you would think that the bad weather with rain had been sent to give a new play-thing for Violet and Peony.

"You look exactly like a snow-image, Peony, if your cheeks were not so red. And that gives me an idea! Let’s make an image out of snow,--an image of a little girl,--and it shall be our sister!"

"Peony, Peony!" cried Violet to her brother, who had gone to another part of the garden, "bring me some of that fresh snow, Peony, from the very farthest corner, where we have not been trampling. I want it to shape our little snow-sister's bosom with!

"Here it is, Violet!" answered Peony, as he came floundering through the drifts. "Here is the snow for her little bosom. O Violet, how beau-ti-ful she begins to look!"

"Is not she beautiful?" said Violet. Mamma will see how very beautiful she is; but papa will say, 'Tush! nonsense!--come in out of the cold!'

“Let us call mamma to look out," said Peony; "Mamma! mamma!! Look, and see what a nice 'little girl we are making!"

The mother stopped, and looked out of the window. But it was a sunny day, and she could not see the garden clearly. Still, she saw a small figure that looked like a human being. And she saw Violet and Peony still at work; Peony bringing fresh snow, and Violet applying it to the figure.

She sat down again to her work, and hurried; because twilight would soon come, and Peony's dress was not yet finished, and grandfather would come early in the morning.

Just then, there came a breeze of the west-wind, moving through the garden and shaking the windows. It sounded so cold, that the mother was about to call the two children in, when they both screamed to her with one voice.

"Dear mamma!" cried Violet, " look out and see what a sweet playmate we have!"

The mother could no longer resist looking out the window. The sun had now left the sky, so that the good lady could look all over the garden, and see everything and everybody in it. And what do you think she saw there? Violet and Peony, of course, her own two lovely children. Ah, but whom or what did she see besides? If you will believe me, there was a small figure of a girl, dressed all in white, with red cheeks and golden curly hair, playing in the garden with the two children! 

"Why, dearest mamma," answered Violet, laughing to think that her mother did not comprehend so very plain an affair, "this is our little snow-sister whom we have just been making!"

"Yes, dear mamma," cried Peony, running to his mother, and looking up simply into her face. "This is our snow-image! Is it not a nice little child?"

"Violet," said her mother, greatly perplexed, "tell me the truth, without any jest. Who is this little girl?"

"My darling mamma," answered Violet, looking seriously into her mother's face, and apparently surprised that she should need any further explanation, "I have told you truly who she is. It is our little snow-image, which Peony and I have been making. Peony will tell you so, as well as I."

While mamma still hesitated what to think and what to do, the street-gate was thrown open, and the father of Violet and Peony appeared, wrapped in a pilot-cloth sack, with a fur cap drawn down over his ears, and the thickest of gloves upon his hands. 

The mother glanced her eyes toward the spot where the children's snow-image had been made. What was her surprise, on perceiving that there was not the slightest trace of so much labor!--no image at all!--no piled up heap of snow!

"This is very strange!" said she.

"What is strange, dear mother?" asked Violet. "Dear father, do not you see how it is? This is our snow-image, which Peony and I have made, because we wanted another playmate.