the door he had left open, and blew about him as he danced,
and he kept turning towards it that it might blow in his face.
He kept picturing to himself the many places, lovely and desolate,
the hill-sides and farm-yards and tree-tops and meadows,
over which it had blown on its way to The Mound. And as he danced,
he grew more and more delighted with the motion and the wind;
his feet grew stronger, and his body lighter, until at length it
seemed as if he were borne up on the air, and could almost fly.
So strong did his feeling become, that at last he began to doubt
whether he was not in one of those precious dreams he had
so often had, in which he floated about on the air at will.
But something made him look up, and to his unspeakable delight,
he found his uplifted hands lying in those of North Wind,
who was dancing with him, round and round the long bare room,
her hair now falling to the floor, now filling the arched ceiling,
her eyes shining on him like thinking stars, and the sweetest of
grand smiles playing breezily about her beautiful mouth. She was,
as so often before, of the height of a rather tall lady. She did not
stoop in order to dance with him, but held his hands high in hers.
When he saw her, he gave one spring, and his arms were about her neck,
and her arms holding him to her bosom. The same moment she swept
with him through the open window in at which the moon was shining,
made a circuit like a bird about to alight, and settled with him
in his nest on the top of the great beech-tree. There she placed
him on her lap and began to hush him as if he were her own baby,
and Diamond was so entirely happy that he did not care to speak
a word. At length, however, he found that he was going to sleep,
and that would be to lose so much, that, pleasant as it was, he could
not consent.