fall all over her face so that he could not see it. This frightened
him still more.

"Do speak, North Wind," he said at last.

"I never speak when I have nothing to say," she replied.

"Then I do think you must be a real North Wind, and no dream,"
said Diamond.

"But I'm looking for something to say all the time."

"But I don't want you to say what's hard to find. If you were
to say one word to comfort me that wasn't true, then I should know
you must be a dream, for a great beautiful lady like you could
never tell a lie."

"But she mightn't know how to say what she had to say, so that
a little boy like you would understand it," said North Wind.
"Here, let us get down again, and I will try to tell you what I think.
You musn't suppose I am able to answer all your questions, though.
There are a great many things I don't understand more than you do."

She descended on a grassy hillock, in the midst of a wild furzy common.
There was a rabbit-warren underneath, and some of the rabbits came
out of their holes, in the moonlight, looking very sober and wise,
just like patriarchs standing in their tent-doors, and looking
about them before going to bed. When they saw North Wind,
instead of turning round and vanishing again with a thump of
their heels, they cantered slowly up to her and snuffled all about