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“Please, dear North Wind,” he said, “I am so happy that I'm afraid it's
a dream. How am I to know that it's not a dream?”
“What does it matter?” returned North Wind.
“I should, cry” said Diamond.
“But why should you cry? The dream, if it is a dream, is a pleasant
one--is it not?”
“That's just why I want it to be true.”
“Have you forgotten what you said to Na
“It's not for the dream itself--I mean, it's not for the pleasure of
it,” answered Diamond, “for I have that, whether it be a dream or not;
it's for you, North Wind; I can't bear to find it a dream, because then
I should lose you. You would be nobody then, and I could not bear that.
You ain't a dream, are you, dear North Wind? Do say No, else I shall
cry, and come awake, and you'll be gone for ever. I daren't dream about
you once again if you ain't anybody.”
“I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's not a dream,
Diamond,” said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone, he thought.
“But it's not something better--it's you I want, North Wind,” he
persisted, already begi
She made no answer, but rose with him in her arms and sailed away over
the tree-tops till they came to a meadow, where a flock of sheep was
feeding.
“Do you remember what the song you were singing a week ago says about
Bo-Peep--how she lost her sheep, but got twice as many lambs?” asked
North Wind, sitting down on the grass, and placing him in her lap as
before.
“Oh yes, I do, well enough,” answered Diamond; “but I never just quite
liked that rhyme.”
“Why not, child?”
“Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two new ones are
better than one that's lost. I've been thinking about it a great deal,
and it seems to me that although any one sixpence is as good as any
other sixpence, not twenty lambs would do instead of one sheep whose
face you knew. Somehow, when once you've looked into anybody's eyes,
right deep down into them, I mean, nobody will do for that one any more.
Nobody, ever so beautiful or so good, will make up for that one going
out of sight. So you see, North Wind, I can't help being frightened to
think that perhaps I am only dreaming, and you are nowhere at all. Do
tell me that you are my own, real, beautiful North Wind.”
Again she rose, and shot herself into the air, as if uneasy because she
could not answer him; and Diamond lay quiet in her arms, waiting
for what she would say. He tried to see up into her face, for he was
dreadfully afraid she was not answering him because she could not say
that she was not a dream; but she had let her hair fall all over her
face so that he could not see it. This frightened him still more.
“Do speak, North Wind,” he said at last.
“I never speak when I have nothing to say,” she replied.
“Then I do think you must be a real North Wind, and no dream,” said
Diamond.
“But I'm looking for something to say all the time.”
“But I don't want you to say what's hard to find. If you were to say one
word to comfort me that wasn't true, then I should know you must be a
dream, for a great beautiful lady like you could never tell a lie.”
“But she mightn't know how to say what she had to say, so that a little
boy like you would understand it,” said North Wind. “Here, let us get
down again, and I will try to tell you what I think. You musn't suppose
I am able to answer all your questions, though. There are a great many
things I don't understand more than you do.”
She descended on a grassy hillock, in the midst of a wild furzy common.
There was a rabbit-warren underneath, and some of the rabbits came out
of their holes, in the moonlight, looking very sober and wise, just like
patriarchs standing in their tent-doors, and looking about them before
going to bed. When they saw North Wind, instead of turning round and
vanishing again with a thump of their heels, they cantered slowly up to
her and snuffled all about her with their long upper lips, which moved
every way at once. That was their way of kissing her; and, as she talked
to Diamond, she would every now and then stroke down their furry backs,
or lift and play with their long ears. They would, Diamond thought, have
leaped upon her lap, but that he was there already.
“I think,” said she, after they had been sitting silent for a while,
“that if I were only a dream, you would not have been able to love me
so. You love me when you are not with me, don't you?”
“Indeed I do,” answered Diamond, stroking her hand. “I see! I see! How
could I be able to love you as I do if you weren't there at all, you
know? Besides, I couldn't be able to dream anything half so beautiful
all out of my own head; or if I did, I couldn't love a fancy of my own
like that, could I?”
“I think not. You might have loved me in a dream, dreamily, and
forgotten me when you woke, I daresay, but not loved me like a real
being as you love me. Even then, I don't think you could dream anything
that hadn't something real like it somewhere. But you've seen me in many
shapes, Diamond: you remember I was a wolf once--don't you?”
“Oh yes--a good wolf that frightened a naughty drunken nurse.”
“Well, suppose I were to turn ugly, would you rather I weren't a dream
then?”
“Yes; for I should know that you were beautiful inside all the same. You
would love me, and I should love you all the same. I shouldn't like you
to look ugly, you know. But I shouldn't believe it a bit.”
“Not if you saw it?”
“No, not if I saw it ever so plain.”
“There's my Diamond! I will tell you all I know about it then. I don't
think I am just what you fancy me to be. I have to shape myself various
ways to various people. But the heart of me is true. People call me
by dreadful names, and think they know all about me. But they don't.
Sometimes they call me Bad Fortune, sometimes Evil Chance, sometimes
Ruin; and they have another name for me which they think the most
dreadful of all.”
“What is that?” asked Diamond, smiling up in her face.
“I won't tell you that name. Do you remember having to go through me to
get into the country at my back?”
“Oh yes, I do. How cold you were, North Wind! and so white, all but your
lovely eyes! My heart grew like a lump of ice, and then I forgot for a
while.”
“You were very near knowing what they call me then. Would you be afraid
of me if you had to go through me again?”
“No. Why should I? Indeed I should be glad enough, if it was only to get
another peep of the country at your back.”
“You've never seen it yet.”
“Haven't I, North Wind? Oh! I'm so sorry! I thought I had. What did I
see then?”
“Only a picture of it. The real country at my real back is ever so much
more beautiful than that. You shall see it one day--perhaps before very
long.”
“Do they sing songs there?”
“Don't you remember the dream you had about the little boys that dug for
the stars?”
“Yes, that I do. I thought you must have had something to do with that
dream, it was so beautiful.”
“Yes; I gave you that dream.”
“Oh! thank you. Did you give Na
bees?”
“Yes. I was the lady that sat at the window of the moon.”
“Oh, thank you. I was almost sure you had something to do with that too.
And did you tell Mr. Raymond the story about the Princess Daylight?”
“I believe I had something to do with it. At all events he thought about