"This is our place for working out designs for those who are unskilled in frost-work. Frostwork is something too delicate for human hands, but in it we excel. Have you never seen on your window-pane of a cold winter morning the picture of a forest of pines, or sheets of sparkling stars and crystals? I am sure you have. Well, we do all that work on your windows, not with artificial snow and ice such as you see here, but by dexterous management we catch the falling flakes and mould them to our will, sometimes doing nothing more than spangling a sheet of glass, and again working out the most elaborate and fantastic marvels of embroidery. But in art our productions are almost endless. We color the tiniest blades of grass and beds of strawberry leaves until the moss upon which they rest look like velvet with floss needlework. We polish the chestnuts till they appear as if carved of rosewood. We strip thistles of their prickly coat, and use the down for pillows. The milk-weed, as it ripens its silken-winged seeds, serves us for many beautiful purposes. We tint the pebbles of a brook till they compare with Florentine mosaics. We wreathe and festoon every bare old bowlder and every niche made barren by the winds. Indeed, the list of our works would fill a volume." Leo listened and looked, though his feet were getting numb and his fingers nearly frozen. Many a time he had seen just such cappings to gate-posts and projections as were here being moulded, and just such rows of pearly drops on a gable's edge; but when, as if to specially please him, the busy workers carved a little snow maid winding a scarf about her curly locks, he clapped his hands in admiration, making such a noise that each little Esquimau dropped his tool in alarm. "Gently! gently!" said Paz and Knops; "they are easily frightened. Though they do not see you, their instinct is so fine that they can nearly guess your presence." "I am sorry if I have frightened them," said Leo. "Can't you say something to soothe them? Tell them how lovely their things are. I long to try and imitate them." Knops said a few words in a language Leo did not comprehend, and the little people gathered up their trowels again. But it was time to go, and Leo had to follow his guides and leave the snow people with more reluctance than anything he had yet seen. CHAPTER VII Knops now led Leo through so many places full of machines and contrivances which the water-power kept active that he was glad when they went up a long inclined plane, and came out into a wide gallery lined with mother-of-pearl, and paved with exquisite sea-shells. Here was a luxurious couch of beautiful feathers, the plumage of birds he had never beheld, and he was not sorry to see Paz bringing out another dozen of tarts for his refreshment. As he ate them, he asked of Knops, who was peeling a lime, "Have you no women and children among your elves?" "Oh yes," said Knops, smiling; "but they are not to be found near our workshops."