THE SNOW MAN. 465

snowy carpet of the earth! or one could imagine that countless
little lights were gleaming, whiter than even the snow itself.

“That is wonderfully beautiful,” said a young girl, who came
with a young man into the garden. They both stood still near
the Snow Man, and contemplated the glittering trees. “ Summer
cannot show a more beautiful sight,” said she; and her eyes
sparkled.

“ And we can’t have such a fellow as this in summer-time,”
replied the young man, and he pointed to the Snow Man. “ He
is capital.” :

_ The girl laughed, nodded at the Snow Man, and then danced
away over the snow with her friend—over the snow that cracked
and crackled under her tread as if she was walking on starch.

“Who were those two?” the Snow Man inquired of the Yard
Dog. ‘You’ve been longer in the yard than I. Do you know
them?”

“ Of course I know them,” replied the Yard Dog. “She has
stroked me, and he has thrown mea meat bone. I don’t bite
those two.”

“ But what are they?” asked the Snow Man.

“ Lovers!” replied the Yard Dog. “They will go to live in the
same kennel, and gnaw at the same bone. Away! away!”

“ Are they the same kind of beings as you and I?” asked the
Snow Man,

“Why, they belong to the master,” retorted the Yard Dog.
“ People certainly know very little who were only born yesterday.
Ican seethat in you. I have age and information. I know every
one here in the house, and I know a time when I did not lie out
here in the cold, fastened to a chain. Away! away!”

“The cold is charming,” said the Snow Man. “ Tell me, tell
me.—But you must not clank with your chain, for it jars within
me when you do that.”

“‘ Away ! away!” barked the Yard Dog. “ They told me I was
a pretty little fellow: then I used to lie in a chair covered with
velvet, up in master’s house, and sit in the lap of the mistress of
all. They used to kiss my nose, and wipe my paws with an
embroidered handkerchief. I was called ‘Ami—dear Ami—sweet
Ami. But afterwards I grew too big for them, and they gave
me away to.the housekeeper. So I came to livein the basement
storey. You can look into that from where you are standing, and
you can see into the room where I was master; for I was master
at the housekeeper’s; It was certainly a smaller place than up-
stairs, but I was more comfortable, and was not continually taken
hold of and pulled about by children as I had been. I received
just as good food as ever, and even better. I had my own cushion,
and there wasa stove, the finest thing in the world at this season.
I went under the stove, and could lie down quite beneath it. Ah!

T still dream of that stove. Away! awav!”
an