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