"Do speak, North Wind!" he said at last.
"I am thinking what I can say," said North Wind slowly. "And say it so that a little boy like you can understand."
As she spoke, she was settling quietly down on a grassy hill side in the midst of a wild, furzy common. There was a rabbit warren underneath. Some of the rabbits came out of their holes in the moonlight. They looked very sober and wise, like patriarchs standing in their tent doors and looking about them before going to bed. When they saw North Wind, instead of turning around and vanishing again with a thump of their heels, they cantered slowly up to her. They snuffed all about her with their long upper lips which moved every way at once. That was their way of kissing her. Every now and then, she stroked down their long furry backs or lifted and played with their long ears.
"I think," she said to Diamond after they had been sitting silent for a long time, "that if I were only a dream, you would not have been able to love me so. You love me when you are not with me, don't you?"
"Indeed I do!" answered Diamond stroking her hand. "I see! I see! How could I be able to love you as I do if you were not there at all, you know? Besides I would not be able to dream anything half so beautiful all out of my own head. Or if I did, I could not love a fancy of my own like that, could I?"
"I think not. Besides, would you not have forgotten me wholly when you woke again? People almost always forget their dreams. But you have seen me in many shapes, Diamond. You remember I was a wolf once—don't you?"
"Yes, a good wolf that frightened a bad, wicked nurse!"
"Well, if I were to turn to an ugly shape again, would you still wish I were not a dream?"
"Yes, for I should know you were still beautiful inside, and that you loved me still. I should not like you to look ugly, you know. And I shouldn't believe it was really you a bit!"
"That's my own Diamond! Then I will try to tell you all I know about it. I don't think I am just what you fancy me to be. I have to shape myself in various ways to various people. But the heart of me is true. People call me by dreadful names and think they know all about me. But they don't. Sometimes they call me Bad Fortune or Evil Chance or Ruin—as Mr. Evans did when I sank his ship. Then people have another name for me which they think the most dreadful of all."