"You would like this room, then, Diamond?" said his mistress.

"It's the grandest room in the house," he answered. "I shall
be near the stars, and yet not far from the tops of the trees.
That's just what I like."

I daresay he thought, also, that it would be a nice place for North
Wind to call at in passing; but he said nothing of that sort.
Below him spread a lake of green leaves, with glimpses of grass
here and there at the bottom of it. As he looked down, he saw
a squirrel appear suddenly, and as suddenly vanish amongst the
topmost branches.

"Aha! little squirrel," he cried, "my nest is built higher than yours."

"You can be up here with your books as much as you like,"
said his mistress. "I will have a little bell hung at the door,
which I can ring when I want you. Half-way down the stair is
the drawing-room."

So Diamond was installed as page, and his new room got ready for him.

It was very soon after this that I came to know Diamond.
I was then a tutor in a family whose estate adjoined the little
property belonging to The Mound. I had made the acquaintance
of Mr. Raymond in London some time before, and was walking up
the drive towards the house to call upon him one fine warm evening,
when I saw Diamond for the first time. He was sitting at the foot
of a great beech-tree, a few yards from the road, with a book
on his knees. He did not see me. I walked up behind the tree,