tter one."

She turned the leaves, searching, but three times with sudden puffs the
wind blew the leaves rustling back to the same verses.

"I wonder if that is North Wind," said Diamond to himself. To his mother
he said, "Do read that one. It sounded very nice. I am sure it is a good
one."

His mother thought it might amuse him although she could not find any
sense in it. So she read on like this:

I know a river
whose waters run asleep,
run, run ever,
singing in the shallows,
dumb in the hollows
sleeping so deep;
and all the swallows
that dip their feathers
in the hollows
or in the shallows
are the merriest swallows of all!

"Why!" whispered Diamond to himself sleepily, "that is what the river
sang when I was at the back of the north wind."

And so with the daisies
the little white daisies
they grow and they blow
and they spread out their crown
and they praise the sun;
and when he goes down
their praising is done
and they fold up their crown
till over the plain
he is rising amain
and they're at it again!
praising and praising
such low songs raising
that no one hears them
but the sun who rears them!
and the sheep that bite them
awake or asleep
are the quietest sheep
with the merriest bleat!
and the little lambs
are the merriest lambs!
they forget to eat
for the frolic in their feet!

"Merriest, merriest, merriest," murmured Diamond as he sank deeper and
deeper in sleep. "That is what the song of the river is telling me.
Even I can be merry and cheerful--and that will help some. And so I
will--when--I--wake--up--again." And he went off sound asleep.

It was not very long after this that Diamond and his mother could go
home again. His father had now found something to do and this is how it
came about. He one day met a cabman who was a friend of his and this
friend said to him, "Why don't you set up as a cabman yourself--and buy
a cab?"

"I haven't enough money to buy a horse with--and a cab," said Diamond's
father.

"Look here," answered his friend. "I just bought an old horse the other
day, cheap. He is no good for the hansom I drive, for when folks take a