“How do you know that?”
“It would become you better to ask how you are to know it.”
“You've just told me.”
“Yes. But what's the use of knowing a thing only because you're told it?”
“Well, how am I to know you are not a fairy? You do look very like one.”
“In the first place, fairies are much bigger than you see me.”
“Oh!” said Diamond reflectively; “I thought they were very little.”
“But they might be tremendously bigger than I am, and yet not very big. Why, I could be six times the size I am, and not be very huge. Besides, a fairy can't grow big and little at will, though the nursery-tales do say so: they don't know better. You stupid Diamond! have you never seen me before?”
And, as she spoke, a moan of wind bent the tulips almost to the ground, and the creature laid her hand on Diamond's shoulder. In a moment he knew that it was North Wind.
“I am very stupid,” he said; “but I never saw you so small before, not even when you were nursing the primrose.”