't go much farther without
her."

"You dear boy! It was only in fun. Here I am!" said North Wind's voice
behind him.

Diamond turned, and saw her as he liked best to see her, standing beside
him, a tall lady.

"Where's the tiger?" he asked, for he knew all the creatures from a
picture book that Miss Coleman had given him. "But, of course," he
added, "you were the tiger. I was puzzled and forgot. I saw it such a
long way off before me, and there you were behind me. It's so odd, you
know."

"It must look very odd to you, Diamond: I see that. But it is no more
odd to me than to break an old pine in two."

"Well, that's odd enough," remarked Diamond.

"So it is! I forgot. Well, none of these things are odder to me than it
is to you to eat bread and butter."

"Well, that's odd too, when I think of it," persisted Diamond. "I should
just like a slice of bread and butter! I'm afraid to say how long it
is--how long it seems to me, that is--since I had anything to eat."

"Come then," said North Wind, stooping and holding out her arms. "You
shall have some bread and butter very soon. I am glad to find you want
some."

Diamond held up his arms to meet hers, and was safe upon her bosom.
North Wind bounded into the air. Her tresses began to lift and rise and
spread and stream and flow and flutter; and with a roar from her hair
and an answering roar from one of the great glaciers beside them, whose
slow torrent tumbled two or three icebergs at once into the waves at
their feet, North Wind and Diamond went flying southwards.

CHAPTER XII. WHO MET DIAMOND AT SANDWICH

As THEY flew, so fast they went that the sea slid away from under them
like a great web of shot silk, blue shot with grey, and green shot with
purple. They went so fast that the stars themselves appeared to sail
away past them overhead, "like golden boats," on a blue sea turned
upside down. And they went so fast that Diamond himself went the other
way as fast--I mean he went fast asleep in North Wind's arms.

When he woke, a face was bending over him; but it was not North Wind's;
it was his mother's. He put out his arms to her, and she clasped him to
her bosom and burst out crying. Diamond kissed her again and again to
make her stop. Perhaps kissing is the best thing for crying, but it will
not always stop it.

"What is the matter, mother?" he said.

"Oh, Diamond, my darling! you have been so ill!" she sobbed.

"No, mother dear. I've only been a