t the back of the north wind,"
returned Diamond.

"I thought you were dead," said his mother.

But that moment the doctor came in.

"Oh! there!" said the doctor with gentle cheerfulness; "we're better
to-day, I see."

Then he drew the mother aside, and told her not to talk to Diamond, or
to mind what he might say; for he must be kept as quiet as possible. And
indeed Diamond was not much inclined to talk, for he felt very strange
and weak, which was little wonder, seeing that all the time he had been
away he had only sucked a few lumps of ice, and there could not be much
nourishment in them.

Now while he is lying there, getting strong again with chicken broth and
other nice things, I will tell my readers what had been taking place at
his home, for they ought to be told it.

They may have forgotten that Miss Coleman was in a very poor state of
health. Now there were three reasons for this. In the first place,
her lungs were not strong. In the second place, there was a gentleman
somewhere who had not behaved very well to her. In the third place, she
had not anything particular to do. These three nots together are enough
to make a lady very ill indeed. Of course she could not help the first
cause; but if the other two causes had not existed, that would have been
of little consequence; she would only have to be a little careful. The
second she could not help quite; but if she had had anything to do,
and had done it well, it would have been very difficult for any man to
behave badly to her. And for this third cause of her illness, if she had
had anything to do that was worth doing, she might have borne his bad
behaviour so that even that would not have made her ill. It is not
always easy, I confess, to find something to do that is worth doing, but
the most difficult things are constantly being done, and she might have
found something if she had tried. Her fault lay in this, that she had
not tried. But, to be sure, her father and mother were to blame that
they had never set her going. Only then again, nobody had told her
father and mother that they ought to set her going in that direction. So
as none of them would find it out of themselves, North Wind had to teach
them.

We know that North Wind was very busy that night on which she left
Diamond in the cathedral. She had in a sense been blowing through
and through the Colemans' house the whole of the night. First, Miss
Coleman's maid had left a chink of her mistress's