When he saw her, he gave one spring and his arms were about her neck and her arms holding him to her breast. The same moment, she swept with him out of the open window through which the moon was shining. Making a wide and sweeping circuit, she settled with him in his own little nest at the top of the big beech tree. Diamond was so entirely happy that he did not care to speak a word. But presently, he felt as if he were going to sleep and that would be to lose so much that he was not willing to do it.
"Please, dear North Wind," said he, "I am so happy that I am afraid it is a dream. How am I to know that it is not a dream?"
"What does it matter?" returned North Wind. "The dream—if it is a dream—is a pleasant one, is it not?"
"That is just why I want it to be true! It is not for the dream itself—I mean it is not for the pleasure of it," answered Diamond, "for I have that whether it is a dream or not. It is for you, North Wind! I cannot bear to find it a dream because then I should lose you! You would be nobody then and I could not bear that. You are not just a dream, dear North Wind, are you? Do say no, for I shall not dare dream of you again if you are nobody at all."
"Either I am not a dream, or there is something better which is not a dream, Diamond," said North Wind in a rather sorrowful tone.
"But it is not something better, it is you I want, North Wind," he persisted.
She made no answer but rose with him in her arms and sailed away over the tree-tops till they came to a meadow where a flock of sheep was feeding.
"Do you remember the song you made up here in this meadow to sing to the baby?" asked North Wind, "about Bo-peep's sheep that ran away from her to follow after the sun? And when she went after them, she could not find the old sheep at all—only some lambs—twice as many new lambs?"
"Oh, yes," said Diamond. "But I do not like that song. It seems to say that one is just as good as another—or that two new ones are better than the one old one you had before. But somehow when once you have looked into anybody's eyes—deep down into them, I mean—no one else will do for you any more. Nobody ever so beautiful or so good will make up to you for that one going out of sight. So you see, North Wind, I cannot help being frightened to think that perhaps I am only dreaming and that you are nowhere at all! Do tell me that you are my own real beautiful North Wind!"
Again she rose and shot high up into the air. Diamond lay quiet in her arms waiting for her to speak. He tried to see up into her face, for he was dreadfully afraid she did not answer him because she could not tell him she was not a dream. But her hair fell all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened him still more.