week. This was what happened then. Diamond the horse wanted new shoes,

and Diamond's father took him out of the stable, and was just getting on

his back to ride him to the forge, when he saw his little boy standing

by the pump, and looking at him wistfully. Then the coachman took his

foot out of the stirrup, left his hold of the mane and bridle, came

across to his boy, lifted him up, and setting him on the horse's back,

told him to sit up like a man. He then led away both Diamonds together.

The boy atop felt not a little tremulous as the great muscles that

lifted the legs of the horse knotted and relaxed against his legs, and

he cowered towards the withers, grasping with his hands the bit of mane

worn short by the collar; but when his father looked back at him,

saying once more, “Sit up, Diamond,” he let the mane go and sat up,

notwithstanding that the horse, thinking, I suppose, that his master

had said to him, “Come up, Diamond,” stepped out faster. For both the

Diamonds were just grandly obedient. And Diamond soon found that, as he

was obedient to his father, so the horse was obedient to him. For he had

not ridden far before he found courage to reach forward and catch hold

of the bridle, and when his father, whose hand was upon it, felt the boy

pull it towards him, he looked up and smiled, and, well pleased, let go

his hold, and left Diamond to guide Diamond; and the boy soon found that

he could do so perfectly. It was a grand thing to be able to guide a

great beast like that. And another discovery he made was that, in order

to guide the horse, he had in a measure to obey the horse first. If he

did not yield his body to the motions of the horse's body, he could not

guide him; he must fall off.

The blacksmith lived at some distance, deeper into London. As they

crossed the angle of a square, Diamond, who was now quite comfortable

on his living throne, was glancing this way and that in a gentle pride,

when he saw a girl sweeping a crossing scuddingly before a lady. The

lady was his father's mistress, Mrs. Coleman, and the little girl was

she for whose sake he had got off North Wind's back. He drew Diamond's

bridle in eager anxiety to see whether her outstretched hand would

gather a penny from Mrs. Coleman. But she had given one at the last

crossing, and the hand returned only to grasp its broom. Diamond could

not bear it. He had a penny in his pocket, a gift of the same lady the

day before, and he tumbled off his horse to give it to the girl. He

tumbled off, I say, for he did tumble when he reached the ground. But he

got up in an instant, and ran, searching his pocket as he ran. She

made him a pretty courtesy when he offered his treasure, but with a

bewildered stare. She thought first: “Then he was on the back of the

North Wind after all!” but, looking up at the sound of the horse's feet

on the paved crossing, she changed her idea, saying to herself, “North

Wind is his father's horse! That's the secret of it! Why couldn't he say

so?” And she had a mind to refuse the penny. But his smile put it all

right, and she not only took his penny but put it in her mouth with a

“Thank you, mister. Did they wollop you then?”

“Oh no!” answered Diamond. “They never wollops me.”

“Lor!” said the little girl, and was speechless.

Meantime his father, looking up, and seeing the horse's back bare,

suffered a pang of awful dread, but the next moment catching sight of

him, took him up and put him on, saying--

“Don't get off again, Diamond. The horse might have put his foot on

you.”

“No, father,” answered the boy, and rode on in majestic safety.

The summer drew near, warm and splendid. Miss Coleman was a little

better in health, and sat a good deal in the garden. One day she saw

Diamond peeping through the shrubbery, and called him. He talked to her

so frankly that she often sent for him after that, and by degrees it

came about that he had leave to run in the garden as he pleased. He

never touched any of the flowers or blossoms, for he was not like some

boys who cannot enjoy a thing without pulling it to pieces, and so

preventing every one from enjoying it after them.

A week even makes such a long time in a child's life, that Diamond had

begun once more to feel as if North Wind were a dream of some far-off

year.

One hot evening, he had been sitting with the young mistress, as they

called her, in a little summer-house at the bottom of the lawn--a

wonderful thing for beauty, the boy thought, for a little window in the

side of it was made of coloured glass. It grew dusky, and the lady began

to feel chill, and went in, leaving the boy in the summer-house. He sat

there gazing out at a bed of tulips, which, although they had closed for

the night, could not go quite asleep for the wind that kept waving

them about. All at once he saw a great bumble-bee fly out of one of the

tulips.

“There! that is something done,” said a voice--a gentle, merry, childish

voice, but so tiny. “At last it was. I thought he would have had to stay

there all night, poor fellow! I did.”

Diamond could not tell whether the voice was near or far away, it was so

small and yet so clear. He had never seen a fairy, but he had heard of

such, and he began to look all about for one. And there was the tiniest

creature sliding down the stem of the tulip!

“Are you the fairy that herds the bees?” he asked, going out of the

summer-house, and down on his knees on the green shore of the tulip-bed.

“I'm not a fairy,” answered the little creature.

“How do you know that?”

“It would become you better to ask how you are to know it.”

“You've just told me.”

“Yes. But what's the use of knowing a thing only because you're told

it?”

“Well, how am I to know you are not a fairy? You do look very like one.”

“In the first place, fairies are much bigger than you see me.”

“Oh!” said Diamond reflectively; “I thought they were very little.”

“But they might be tremendously bigger than I am, and yet not very big.

Why, I could be six times the size I am, and not be very huge. Besides,

a fairy can't grow big and little at will, though the nursery-tales do

say so: they don't know better. You stupid Diamond! have you never seen

me before?”

And, as she spoke, a moan of wind bent the tulips almost to the ground,

and the creature laid her hand on Diamond's shoulder. In a moment he

knew that it was North Wind.

“I am very stupid,” he said; “but I never saw you so small before, not

even when you were nursing the primrose.”

“Must you see me every size that can be measured before you know me,

Diamond?”

“But how could I think it was you taking care of a great stupid

bumble-bee?”

“The more stupid he was the more need he had to be taken care of. What

with sucking honey and trying to open the door, he was nearly dated; and

when it opened in the morning to let the sun see the tulip's heart, what

would the sun have thought to find such a stupid thing lying there--with

wings too?”

“But how do you have time to look after bees?”

“I don't look after bees. I had this one to look after. It was hard

work, though.”

“Hard work! Why, you could blow a chimney down, or--or a boy's cap off,”

 said Diamond.

“Both are easier than to blow a tulip open. But I scarcely know the

difference between hard and easy. I am always able for what I have to

do. When I see my work, I just rush at it--and it is done. But I mustn't