e fellow was shrieking
with laughter. For the baby's world was his mother's arms; and the
drizzling rain, and the dreary mews, and even his father's troubled
face could not touch him. What cared baby for the loss of a hundred
situations? Yet neither father nor mother thought him hard-hearted
because he crowed and laughed in the middle of their troubles. On the
contrary, his crowing and laughing were infectious. His little heart was
so full of merriment that it could not hold it all, and it ran over into
theirs. Father and mother began to laugh too, and Diamond laughed till
he had a fit of coughing which frightened his mother, and made them all
stop. His father took the baby, and his mother put him to bed.

But it was indeed a change to them all, not only from Sandwich, but from
their old place, instead of the great river where the huge barges with
their mighty brown and yellow sails went tacking from side to side like
little pleasure-skiffs, and where the long thin boats shot past with
eight and sometimes twelve rowers, their windows now looked out upon a
dirty paved yard. And there was no garden more for Diamond to run into
when he pleased, with gay flowers about his feet, and solemn sun-filled
trees over his head. Neither was there a wooden wall at the back of
his bed with a hole in it for North Wind to come in at when she liked.
Indeed, there was such a high wall, and there were so many houses about
the mews, that North Wind seldom got into the place at all, except when
something must be done, and she had a grand cleaning out like other
housewives; while the partition at the head of Diamond's new bed only
divided it from the room occupied by a cabman who drank too much beer,
and came home chiefly to quarrel with his wife and pinch his children.
It was dreadful to Diamond to hear the scolding and the crying. But it
could not make him miserable, because he had been at the back of the
north wind.

If my reader find it hard to believe that Diamond should be so good,
he must remember that he had been to the back of the north wind. If he
never knew a boy so good, did he ever know a boy that had been to the
back of the north wind? It was not in the least strange of Diamond to
behave as he did; on the contrary, it was thoroughly sensible of him.

We shall see how he got on.

CHAPTER XVI. DIAMOND MAKES A BEGINNING

THE wind blew loud, but Diamond slept a deep sleep, and never heard
it. My own impression is that e