than Mrs. Bill, the blacksmith's wife--even if you see me looking in at
people's windows like Mrs. Eve Dropper, the gardener's wife--you must
believe that I am doing my work. Nay, Diamond, if I change into a
serpent or a tiger, you must not let go your hold of me, for my hand
will never change in yours if you keep a good hold. If you keep a hold,
you will know who I am all the time, even when you look at me and can't
see me the least like the North Wind. I may look something very awful.
Do you understand?"

"Quite well," said little Diamond.

"Come along, then," said North Wind, and disappeared behind the mountain
of hay.

Diamond crept out of bed and followed her.

CHAPTER II. THE LAWN

WHEN Diamond got round the corner of the hay, for a moment he hesitated.
The stair by which he would naturally have gone down to the door was
at the other side of the loft, and looked very black indeed; for it was
full of North Wind's hair, as she descended before him. And just beside
him was the ladder going straight down into the stable, up which his
father always came to fetch the hay for Diamond's dinner. Through the
opening in the floor the faint gleam of the-stable lantern was enticing,
and Diamond thought he would run down that way.

The stair went close past the loose-box in which Diamond the horse
lived. When Diamond the boy was half-way down, he remembered that it
was of no use to go this way, for the stable-door was locked. But at the
same moment there was horse Diamond's great head poked out of his box
on to the ladder, for he knew boy Diamond although he was in his
night-gown, and wanted him to pull his ears for him. This Diamond did
very gently for a minute or so, and patted and stroked his neck too, and
kissed the big horse, and had begun to take the bits of straw and hay
out of his mane, when all at once he recollected that the Lady North
Wind was waiting for him in the yard.

"Good night, Diamond," he said, and darted up the ladder, across the
loft, and down the stair to the door. But when he got out into the yard,
there was no lady.

Now it is always a dreadful thing to think there is somebody and find
nobody. Children in particular have not made up their minds to it; they
generally cry at nobody, especially when they wake up at night. But it
was an especial disappointment to Diamond, for his little heart had been
beating with joy: the face of the North Wind was so grand! To have
a lady like that for