would come now: a real north wind had never blown all the time
since he left London. But, as she always came of herself,
and never when he was looking for her, and indeed almost never when
he was thinking of her, he shut the east window, and went to bed.
Perhaps some of my readers may wonder that he could go to sleep with
such an expectation; and, indeed, if I had not known him, I should
have wondered at it myself; but it was one of his peculiarities,
and seemed nothing strange in him. He was so full of quietness that
he could go to sleep almost any time, if he only composed himself
and let the sleep come. This time he went fast asleep as usual.

But he woke in the dim blue night. The moon had vanished.
He thought he heard a knocking at his door. "Somebody wants me,"
he said to himself, and jumping out of bed, ran to open it.

But there was no one there. He closed it again, and, the noise
still continuing, found that another door in the room was rattling.
It belonged to a closet, he thought, but he had never been able
to open it. The wind blowing in at the window must be shaking it.
He would go and see if it was so.

The door now opened quite easily, but to his surprise, instead of
a closet he found a long narrow room. The moon, which was sinking
in the west, shone in at an open window at the further end.
The room was low with a coved ceiling, and occupied the whole top
of the house, immediately under the roof. It was quite empty.
The yellow light of the half-moon streamed over the dark floor.
He was so delighted at the discovery of the strange, desolate,
moonlit place close to his own snug little room, that he began
to dance and skip about the floor. The wind came in through