what I have now told you. I should have been astonished at his being able
even to report such conversations as he said he had had with North Wind,
had I not known already that some children are profound in metaphysics.
But a fear crosses me, lest, by telling so much about my friend,
I should lead people to mistake him for one of those consequential,
priggish little monsters, who are always trying to say clever things,
and looking to see whether people appreciate them. When a child
like that dies, instead of having a silly book written about him,
he should be stuffed like one of those awful big-headed fishes you see
in museums. But Diamond never troubled his head about what people
thought of him. He never set up for knowing better than others.
The wisest things he said came out when he wanted one to help
him with some difficulty he was in. He was not even offended
with Nanny and Jim for calling him a silly. He supposed there
was something in it, though he could not quite understand what.
I suspect however that the other name they gave him, God's Baby,
had some share in reconciling him to it.

Happily for me, I was as much interested in metaphysics as
Diamond himself, and therefore, while he recounted his conversations
with North Wind, I did not find myself at all in a strange sea,
although certainly I could not always feel the bottom, being indeed
convinced that the bottom was miles away.

"Could it be all dreaming, do you think, sir?" he asked anxiously.

"I daren't say, Diamond," I answered. "But at least there is one
thing you may be sure of, that there is a still better love than that
of the wonderful being you call North Wind. Even if she be a dream,
the dream of such a beautiful creature could not come to you by chance."