thin and blue-eyed, until she
was wanted. Or she might have again become a mighty creature, with
power to do that which was demanded of her, and gone far away upon many
missions. She must be somewhere, however. He could not go home without
her, and therefore he must find her. She could never have intended to
leave him always away from his mother. If there had been any danger of
that, she would have told him, and given him his choice about going. For
North Wind was right honest. How to find North Wind, therefore, occupied
all his thoughts.

In his anxiety about his mother, he used to climb the tree every day,
and sit in its branches. However many of the dwellers there did so, they
never incommoded one another; for the moment one got into the tree, he
became invisible to every one else; and it was such a wide-spreading
tree that there was room for every one of the people of the country
in it, without the least interference with each other. Sometimes, on
getting down, two of them would meet at the root, and then they would
smile to each other more sweetly than at any other time, as much as to
say, "Ah, you've been up there too!"

One day he was sitting on one of the outer branches of the tree, looking
southwards after his home. Far away was a blue shining sea, dotted with
gleaming and sparkling specks of white. Those were the icebergs. Nearer
he saw a great range of snow-capped mountains, and down below him the
lovely meadow-grass of the country, with the stream flowing and flowing
through it, away towards the sea. As he looked he began to wonder, for
the whole country lay beneath him like a map, and that which was near
him looked just as small as that which he knew to be miles away. The
ridge of ice which encircled it appeared but a few yards off, and no
larger than the row of pebbles with which a child will mark out the
boundaries of the kingdom he has appropriated on the sea-shore. He
thought he could distinguish the vapoury form of North Wind, seated as
he had left her, on the other side. Hastily he descended the tree, and
to his amazement found that the map or model of the country still lay at
his feet. He stood in it. With one stride he had crossed the river; with
another he had reached the ridge of ice; with the third he stepped over
its peaks, and sank wearily down at North Wind's knees. For there she
sat on her doorstep. The peaks of the great ridge of ice were as lofty
as ever behind her, and the country at her