"Who are you, please?" asked Diamond.
"Well, really, I begin to be ashamed of you!" cried the voice. "You are as bad as a baby that doesn't know its mother in a new bonnet!"
"Not quite so bad as that, dear North Wind," said Diamond. "And I am so glad to see you. Did you sink the ship?"
"Yes."
"And drown everybody?"
"Not quite. One boat got away with six or seven men in it."
"And you took the others to that queer place the gentleman spoke of," said Diamond to himself. Aloud he said, "Please, North Wind, I want you to take me to the country at the back of the north wind."
"That is not so easy," said North Wind and was silent so long that he thought she must have gone away. But presently she spoke again.
"It is not so easy," she said thoughtfully. "But we shall see. We shall see. You must go home, now, my dear, for you do not seem very well."
So Diamond went home. That afternoon, his head began to ache very much and he had to go to bed. In the middle of the night, his aunt came in to feel his forehead and to give him a drink of lemonade. Then he went off to sleep, but was awake again soon, for a burst of wind blew open his lattice window. The same moment, he found himself in a cloud of North Wind's hair, with her beautiful face, set in it like a moon, bending over him.