"Come, wife," said he, "let her have a pair of thick stockings and a
woollen shawl or blanket directly; and tell Dora to give her some warm
supper as soon as the milk boils. You, Violet and Peony, amuse your
little friend. She is out of spirits, you see, at finding herself in a
strange place. For my part, I will go around among the neighbours, and
find out where she belongs."
The mother, meanwhile, had gone in search of the shawl and stockings;
for her own view of the matter, however subtle and delicate, had given
way, as it always did, to the stubborn materialism of her husband.
Without heeding the remonstrances of his two children, who still kept
murmuring that their little snow-sister did not love the warmth, good
Mr. Lindsey took his departure, shutting the parlour-door carefully
behind him. Turning up the collar of his sack over his ears, he
emerged from the house, and had barely reached the street-gate when he
was recalled by the screams of Violet and Peony, and the rapping of a
thimbled finger against the parlour window.
"Husband! husband!" cried his wife, showing her horror-stricken face
through the window-panes. "There is no need of going for the child's
parents!"
"We told you so, father!" screamed Violet and Peony, as he re-entered
the parlour. "You would bring her in; and now our
poor--dear--beau-ti-ful little snow-sister is thawed!"
And their own sweet little faces were already dissolved in tears; so
that their father, seeing what strange things occasionally happen in
this every-day world, felt not a little anxious lest his children
might be going to thaw too! In the utmost perplexity, he demanded an
explanation of his wife.
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