“Come up, Diamond,” it said. “It's all ready. I'm waiting for you.”

He looked out of the bed, and saw a gigantic, powerful, but most lovely

arm--with a hand whose fingers were nothing the less ladylike that they

could have strangled a boa-constrictor, or choked a tigress off its

prey--stretched down through a big hole in the roof. Without a moment's

hesitation he reached out his tiny one, and laid it in the grand palm

before him.

THE hand felt its way up his arm, and, grasping it gently and strongly

above the elbow, lifted Diamond from the bed. The moment he was through

the hole in the roof, all the winds of heaven seemed to lay hold upon

him, and buffet him hither and thither. His hair blew one way, his

night-gown another, his legs threatened to float from under him, and

his head to grow dizzy with the swiftness of the invisible assailant.

Cowering, he clung with the other hand to the huge hand which held his

arm, and fear invaded his heart.

“Oh, North Wind!” he murmured, but the words vanished from his lips as

he had seen the soap-bubbles that burst too soon vanish from the mouth

of his pipe. The wind caught them, and they were nowhere. They couldn't

get out at all, but were torn away and strangled. And yet North Wind

heard them, and in her answer it seemed to Diamond that just because she

was so big and could not help it, and just because her ear and her mouth

must seem to him so dreadfully far away, she spoke to him more tenderly

and graciously than ever before. Her voice was like the bass of a deep

organ, without the groan in it; like the most delicate of violin tones

without the wail in it; like the most glorious of trumpet-ejaculations

without the defiance in it; like the sound of falling water without

the clatter and clash in it: it was like all of them and neither

of them--all of them without their faults, each of them without its

peculiarity: after all, it was more like his mother's voice than

anything else in the world.

“Diamond, dear,” she said, “be a man. What is fearful to you is not the

least fearful to me.”

“But it can't hurt you,” murmured Diamond, “for you're it.”

“Then if I'm it, and have you in my arms, how can it hurt you?”

“Oh yes! I see,” whispered Diamond. “But it looks so dreadful, and it

pushes me about so.”

“Yes, it does, my dear. That is what it was sent for.”

At the same moment, a peal of thunder which shook Diamond's heart

against the sides of his bosom hurtled out of the heavens: I cannot

say out of the sky, for there was no sky. Diamond had not seen the

lightning, for he had been intent on finding the face of North Wind.

Every moment the folds of her garment would sweep across his eyes and

blind him, but between, he could just persuade himself that he saw great

glories of woman's eyes looking down through rifts in the mountainous

clouds over his head.

He trembled so at the thunder, that his knees failed him, and he sunk

down at North Wind's feet, and clasped her round the column of her

ankle. She instantly stooped, lifted him from the roof--up--up into her

bosom, and held him there, saying, as if to an inconsolable child--

“Diamond, dear, this will never do.”

“Oh yes, it will,” answered Diamond. “I am all right now--quite

comfortable, I assure you, dear North Wind. If you will only let me stay

here, I shall be all right indeed.”

“But you will feel the wind here, Diamond.”

“I don't mind that a bit, so long as I feel your arms through it,”

 answered Diamond, nestling closer to her grand bosom.

“Brave boy!” returned North Wind, pressing him closer.

“No,” said Diamond, “I don't see that. It's not courage at all, so long

as I feel you there.”

“But hadn't you better get into my hair? Then you would not feel the

wind; you will here.”

“Ah, but, dear North Wind, you don't know how nice it is to feel your

arms about me. It is a thousand times better to have them and the wind

together, than to have only your hair and the back of your neck and no

wind at all.”

“But it is surely more comfortable there?”

“Well, perhaps; but I begin to think there are better things than being

comfortable.”

“Yes, indeed there are. Well, I will keep you in front of me. You will

feel the wind, but not too much. I shall only want one arm to take care

of you; the other will be quite enough to sink the ship.”

“Oh, dear North Wind! how can you talk so?”

“My dear boy, I never talk; I always mean what I say.”

“Then you do mean to sink the ship with the other hand?”

“Yes.”

“It's not like you.”

“How do you know that?”

“Quite easily. Here you are taking care of a poor little boy with one

arm, and there you are sinking a ship with the other. It can't be like

you.”

“Ah! but which is me? I can't be two mes, you know.”

“No. Nobody can be two mes.”

“Well, which me is me?”

“Now I must think. There looks to be two.”

“Yes. That's the very point.--You can't be knowing the thing you don't

know, can you?”

“No.”

“Which me do you know?”

“The kindest, goodest, best me in the world,” answered Diamond, clinging

to North Wind.

“Why am I good to you?”

“I don't know.”

“Have you ever done anything for me?”

“No.”

“Then I must be good to you because I choose to be good to you.”

“Yes.”

“Why should I choose?”

“Because--because--because you like.”

“Why should I like to be good to you?”

“I don't know, except it be because it's good to be good to me.”

“That's just it; I am good to you because I like to be good.”

“Then why shouldn't you be good to other people as well as to me?”

“That's just what I don't know. Why shouldn't I?”

“I don't know either. Then why shouldn't you?”

“Because I am.”

“There it is again,” said Diamond. “I don't see that you are. It looks

quite the other thing.”

“Well, but listen to me, Diamond. You know the one me, you say, and that

is good.”

“Yes.”

“Do you know the other me as well?”

“No. I can't. I shouldn't like to.”

“There it is. You don't know the other me. You are sure of one of them?”

“Yes.”

“And you are sure there can't be two mes?”

“Yes.”

“Then the me you don't know must be the same as the me you do

know,--else there would be two mes?”

“Yes.”

“Then the other me you don't know must be as kind as the me you do

know?”

“Yes.”

“Besides, I tell you that it is so, only it doesn't look like it. That I

confess freely. Have you anything more to object?”

“No, no, dear North Wind; I am quite satisfied.”

“Then I will tell you something you might object. You might say that the

me you know is like the other me, and that I am cruel all through.”

“I know that can't be, because you are so kind.”

“But that kindness might be only a pretence for the sake of being more

cruel afterwards.”

Diamond clung to her tighter than ever, crying--

“No, no, dear North Wind; I can't believe that. I don't believe it. I

won't believe it. That would kill me. I love you, and you must love me,

else how did I come to love you? How could you know how to put on such a

beautiful face if you did not love me and the rest? No. You may sink

as many ships as you like, and I won't say another word. I can't say I

shall like to see it, you know.”