"Oh, yes, she is."
"I don't see her!"
"I do, though. There she is."
He pointed to a bed right in front of where Diamond was standing.
"That's not Nanny!" cried Diamond.
"Yes, it is Nanny. I have seen her a great many times since you have, and that is she."
So Diamond looked again and looked hard. "If that is Nanny," said Diamond to himself, "then she must have been at the back of the north wind. That is why she looks so different." He said nothing aloud, only stared. And as he stared, something of the face of the old Nanny began to come out in the face of the new Nanny. The old Nanny had been somewhat rough in her speech, her face rather hard, and she had not kept herself clean—how could she! Now, in her fresh white bed, she looked sweet and gentle and refined.
"Surely North Wind has had something to do with it," thought Diamond. In her weeks of sickness, had North Wind carried Nanny to the country at her back—as she once had carried him—and changed her from a rough girl to a gentle maiden? As he gazed, the best of the old face, the good and true part of the old Nanny, dawned upon him like the moon coming out of a cloud. He saw that it was Nanny, indeed—but very worn and grown almost beautiful.
He went up to her and she smiled. He had heard her laugh, but he had never seen her smile before. "Nanny, do you know me?" asked Diamond. She only smiled again. She was not likely to forget him. To be sure, she did not know that it was he who had got her there. But he was the only boy except cripple Jim who had ever been kind to her.
Mr. Raymond walked about talking to the other children, while Diamond visited with Nanny. Then after a time, he stood in the middle of the room and told them a nice fairy story. He often did that and the children watched for his visits. After he finished the story, he had to go. Diamond took leave of Nanny and promised to go and see her again soon and went away with Mr. Raymond.