t 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 th