The Snow-Image, a Childish Miracle by Nathaniel Hawthorne. Short summary

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On a cold winter evening, parents saw their children playing with an unfamiliar girl. They called her in to warm up, but she melted in the hot, heated house.

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One day Violet and Peony asked their mother to go outside. It was a cold, frosty day. The children were frolicking, and their mother occasionally looked out the window and watched them. The sister and brother decided to make a snow maiden.

After a while, the children began to call their mother outside to show her what a wonderful little snow maiden they had made. She looked out the window and saw a strange girl next to her children, dressed in such a cold weather only in satin shoes and a light dress.

Her mother asked Peony and Violet who it was with them. They replied that it was the snow maiden they had molded. It was hard to believe this, but everything indicated that the children were not lying.

The father of the family was returning from work. When he saw the snow maiden, he took her into the house and put her warm near the hot stove. He was about to go to the neighbors to find out whose child it was. But then his wife called him and told him that the girl was gone, only a handful of snow and some water were left of her.