that two new ones are better
than the one old one you had before. But somehow when once you have
looked into anybody's eyes--deep down into them, I mean--no one else
will do for you any more. Nobody ever so beautiful or so good will make
up to you for that one going out of sight. So you see, North Wind, I
cannot help being frightened to think that perhaps I am only dreaming
and that you are nowhere at all! Do tell me that you are my own real
beautiful North Wind!"

Again she rose and shot high up into the air. Diamond lay quiet in her
arms waiting for her to speak. He tried to see up into her face, for he
was dreadfully afraid she did not answer him because she could not tell
him she was not a dream. But her hair fell 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 am thinking what I can say," said North Wind slowly. "And say it so
that a little boy like you can understand."

As she spoke, she was settling quietly down on a grassy hill side in the
midst of a wild, furzy common. There was a rabbit warren underneath.
Some of the rabbits came out of their holes in the moonlight. They
looked very sober and wise, like patriarchs standing in their tent doors
and looking about them before going to bed. When they saw North Wind,
instead of turning around and vanishing again with a thump of their
heels, they cantered slowly up to her. They snuffed all about her with
their long upper lips which moved every way at once. That was their way
of kissing her. Every now and then, she stroked down their long furry
backs or lifted and played with their long ears.

"I think," she said to Diamond after they had been sitting silent for a
long time, "that if I were only a dream, you would not have been able to
love me so. You love me when you are not with me, don't you?"

"Indeed I do!" answered Diamond stroking her hand. "I see! I see! How
could I be able to love you as I do if you were not there at all, you
know? Besides I would not be able to dream anything half so beautiful
all out of my own head. Or if I did, I could not love a fancy of my own
like that, could I?"

"I think not. Besides, would you not have forgotten me wholly when you
woke again? People almost always forget their dreams. But you have seen
me in many shapes, Diamond. You remember I was a wolf once--don't you?"

"Yes, a good wolf that frightened a bad, wicked nurse!"

"Well, if I were t