“What does it matter?” returned North Wind. “I should cry,” said Diamond. “But why should you cry? The dream, if it is a dream, is a pleasant one--is it not?” “That's just why I want it to be true.” “Have you forgotten what you said to Nanny about her dream?” “It's not for the dream itself--I mean, it's not for the pleasure of it,” answered Diamond, “for I have that, whether it be a dream or not; it's for you, North Wind; I can't bear to find it a dream, because then I should lose you. You would be nobody then, and I could not bear that. You ain't a dream, are you, dear North Wind? Do say No, else I shall cry, and come awake, and you'll be gone for ever. I daren't dream about you once again if you ain't anybody.” “I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's not a dream, Diamond,” said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful tone, he thought. “But it's not something better--it's you I want, North Wind,” he persisted, already beginning to cry a little. She made no answer, but rose with him in her arms and sailed away over the tree-tops till they came to a meadow, where a flock of sheep was feeding. “Do you remember what the song you were singing a week ago says about Bo-Peep--how she lost her sheep, but got twice as many lambs?” asked North Wind, sitting down on the grass, and placing him in her lap as before. “Oh yes, I do, well enough,” answered Diamond; “but I never just quite liked that rhyme.” “Why not, child?” “Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two new ones are better than one that's lost. I've been thinking about it a great deal, and it seems to me that although any one sixpence is as good as any other sixpence, not twenty lambs would do instead of one sheep whose face you knew. Somehow, when once you've looked into anybody's eyes, right deep down into them, I mean, nobody will do for that one any more. Nobody, ever so beautiful or so good, will make up for that one going out of sight. So you see, North Wind, I can't help being frightened to think that perhaps I am only dreaming, and you are nowhere at all. Do tell me that you are my own, real, beautiful North Wind.” Again she rose, and shot herself into the air, as if uneasy because she could not answer him; and Diamond lay quiet in her arms, waiting for what she would say. He tried to see up into her face, for he was dreadfully afraid she was not answering him because she could not say that she was not a dream; but she had let her hair fall all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened him still more. “Do speak, North Wind,” he said at last. “I never speak when I have nothing to say,” she replied. “Then I do think you must be a real North Wind, and no dream,” said Diamond. “But I'm looking for something to say all the time.”