Diamond's father and mother lived in a little cottage a short distance from the house. It was a real cottage with a roof of thick thatch which, in June and July, the wind sprinkled with the red and white petals of the rose tree climbing up the walls. But Mr. and Mrs. Raymond wanted Diamond to be a page in their own house. So he was dressed in the little blue suit of a page and lived at "The Mound" itself. "Would you be afraid to sleep alone, Diamond?" asked his mistress. "There is a little room at the top of the house--all alone. Perhaps you would not mind sleeping there." "I can sleep anywhere," said Diamond. "And I like best to be high up. Should I be able to see out?" "I will show you the place," she answered, and taking him by the hand, she led him up and up the oval winding stair into one of the two towers that were on the house. Near the top, they entered a tiny room with two windows from which you could see all over the country. Diamond clapped his hands with delight! "You would like this room, then, Diamond?" asked his mistress. "It is the grandest room in the house!" he answered. "I shall be near the stars and yet not far from the tops of the trees. That is just what I like!" I daresay he thought also that it would be a nice place for North Wind to call at, in passing. Below him spread a lake of green leaves with glimpses of grass here and there at the bottom. As he looked down, he saw a squirrel appear suddenly and as suddenly vanish among the top-most branches. "Aha! Mr. Squirrel!" he cried. "My nest is built higher than yours!" "I will have a bell hung at your door which I can ring when I want you," said his mistress. And so Diamond became a little page in the house. But after all, his master and mistress seemed to want to keep him out of doors as much as possible. And his father and mother sometimes looked at him very anxiously. Diamond thought that no one seemed to ask him to do much. Often they gave him a story book and sent him out to sit in the sweet air and sunshine at the foot of a big beech tree. He did not see much of Nanny and Jim. Somehow they liked to slip off together when their work was over. They did not understand the many fancies that Diamond talked about, but they could understand each other very well. They were never unkind to him but they liked better to go off by themselves. Diamond did not mind much. He was never lonely. And then he had a beautiful place where he went and where he saw lovely things that no one else saw. He called this place his nest. He went to it by going up a little rope ladder that hung from a branch of the big beech tree. When he reached the limb the rope hung from, he went on climbing higher and higher. Up among the leafy branches and away at the top, out of sight, he found a safe and comfortable seat which he called his nest. "What do you see up there, Diamond," some one asked him once.