Diamond had never seen before. The moment the angel saw what it was,

instead of showing it about, he handed it to one of his neighbours, and

seated himself on the edge of the hole, saying:

“This will do for me. Good-bye. I'm off.”

They crowded about him, hugging and kissing him; then stood back with a

solemn stillness, their wings lying close to their shoulders. The little

fellow looked round on them once with a smile, and then shot himself

headlong through the star-hole. Diamond, as privileged, threw himself

on the ground to peep after him, but he saw nothing. “It's no use,” said

the captain. “I never saw anything more of one that went that way.”

“His wings can't be much use,” said Diamond, concerned and fearful, yet

comforted by the calm looks of the rest.

“That's true,” said the captain. “He's lost them by this time. They all

do that go that way. You haven't got any, you see.”

“No,” said Diamond. “I never did have any.”

“Oh! didn't you?” said the captain.

“Some people say,” he added, after a pause, “that they come again. I

don't know. I've never found the colour I care about myself. I suppose I

shall some day.”

Then they looked again at the star, put it carefully into its hole,

danced around it and over it--but solemnly, and called it by the name of

the finder.

“Will you know it again?” asked Diamond.

“Oh, yes. We never forget a star that's been made a door of.”

Then they went on with their searching and digging.

Diamond having neither pickaxe nor spade, had the more time to think.

“I don't see any little girls,” he said at last.

The captain stopped his shovelling, leaned on his spade, rubbed his

forehead thoughtfully with his left hand--the little angels were all

left-handed--repeated the words “little girls,” and then, as if a

thought had struck him, resumed his work, saying--

“I think I know what you mean. I've never seen any of them, of course;

but I suppose that's the sort you mean. I'm told--but mind I don't say

it is so, for I don't know--that when we fall asleep, a troop of angels

very like ourselves, only quite different, goes round to all the stars

we have discovered, and discovers them after us. I suppose with our

shovelling and handling we spoil them a bit; and I daresay the clouds

that come up from below make them smoky and dull sometimes. They

say--mind, I say they say--these other angels take them out one by one,

and pass each round as we do, and breathe over it, and rub it with

their white hands, which are softer than ours, because they don't do any

pick-and-spade work, and smile at it, and put it in again: and that is

what keeps them from growing dark.”

“How jolly!” thought Diamond. “I should like to see them at their work

too.--When do you go to sleep?” he asked the captain.

“When we grow sleepy,” answered the captain. “They do say--but mind I

say they say--that it is when those others--what do you call them? I

don't know if that is their name; I am only guessing that may be the

sort you mean--when they are on their rounds and come near any troop of

us we fall asleep. They live on the west side of the hill. None of us

have ever been to the top of it yet.”

Even as he spoke, he dropped his spade. He tumbled down beside it,

and lay fast asleep. One after the other each of the troop dropped his

pickaxe or shovel from his listless hands, and lay fast asleep by his

work.

“Ah!” thought Diamond to himself, with delight, “now the girl-angels are

coming, and I, not being an angel, shall not fall asleep like the rest,

and I shall see the girl-angels.”

But the same moment he felt himself growing sleepy. He struggled hard

with the invading power. He put up his fingers to his eyelids and pulled

them open. But it was of no use. He thought he saw a glimmer of pale

rosy light far up the green hill, and ceased to know.

When he awoke, all the angels were starting up wide awake too. He

expected to see them lift their tools, but no, the time for play had

come. They looked happier than ever, and each began to sing where he

stood. He had not heard them sing before.

“Now,” he thought, “I shall know what kind of nonsense the angels sing

when they are merry. They don't drive cabs, I see, but they dig for

stars, and they work hard enough to be merry after it.”

And he did hear some of the angels' nonsense; for if it was all sense to

them, it had only just as much sense to Diamond as made good nonsense of

it. He tried hard to set it down in his mind, listening as closely as

he could, now to one, now to another, and now to all together. But

while they were yet singing he began, to his dismay, to find that he was

coming awake--faster and faster. And as he came awake, he found that,

for all the goodness of his memory, verse after verse of the angels'

nonsense vanished from it. He always thought he could keep the last,

but as the next began he lost the one before it, and at length awoke,

struggling to keep hold of the last verse of all. He felt as if the

effort to keep from forgetting that one verse of the vanishing song

nearly killed him. And yet by the time he was wide awake he could not be

sure of that even. It was something like this:

         White hands of whiteness

           Wash the stars' faces,

         Till glitter, glitter, glit, goes their brightness

           Down to poor places.

This, however, was so near sense that he thought it could not be really

what they did sing.

THE next morning Diamond was up almost as early as before. He had

nothing to fear from his mother now, and made no secret of what he was

about. By the time he reached the stable, several of the men were there.

They asked him a good many questions as to his luck the day before, and

he told them all they wanted to know. But when he proceeded to harness

the old horse, they pushed him aside with rough kindness, called him a

baby, and began to do it all for him. So Diamond ran in and had another

mouthful of tea and bread and butter; and although he had never been so

tired as he was the night before, he started quite fresh this morning.

It was a cloudy day, and the wind blew hard from the north--so hard

sometimes that, perched on the box with just his toes touching the

ground, Diamond wished that he had some kind of strap to fasten himself

down with lest he should be blown away. But he did not really mind it.

His head was full of the dream he had dreamed; but it did not make him

neglect his work, for his work was not to dig stars but to drive old

Diamond and pick up fares. There are not many people who can think about

beautiful things and do common work at the same time. But then there are

not many people who have been to the back of the north wind.

There was not much business doing. And Diamond felt rather cold,

notwithstanding his mother had herself put on his comforter and helped

him with his greatcoat. But he was too well aware of his dignity to

get inside his cab as some do. A cabman ought to be above minding the

weather--at least so Diamond thought. At length he was called to a

neighbouring house, where a young woman with a heavy box had to be taken