I just stick to my work. It is all one to me to let a bee out of a tulip, or to sweep the cobwebs from the sky.

You would like to go with me to-night?”

“I don’t want to see a ship sunk.”

“But suppose I had to take you?”

“Why, then, of course I must go.”

“There’s a good Diamond.-I think I had better be growing a bit.

Only you must go to bed first. I can’t take you till you’re in bed.

That’s the law about the children. So I had better go and do something else first.”

“Very well, North Wind,” said Diamond. “What are you going to do first, if you please?”

“I think I may tell you. Jump up on the top of the wall, there.”

“I can’t.”

“Ah! and I can’t help you-you haven’t been to bed yet, you see.

Come out to the road with me, just in front of the coach-house, and I will show you.”

North Wind grew very small indeed, so small that she could not have blown the dust off a dusty miller, as the Scotch children call a yellow auricula. Diamond could not even see the blades of grass move as she flitted along by his foot. They left the lawn, went out by the wicket in the-coach-house gates, and then crossed the road to the low wall that separated it from the river.

“You can get up on this wall, Diamond,” said North Wind.

“Yes; but my mother has forbidden me.”

“Then don’t,” said North Wind.

“But I can see over,” said Diamond.

“Ah! to be sure. I can’t.”

So saying, North Wind gave a little bound, and stood on the top of the wall. She was just about the height a dragon-fly would be, if it stood on end.

“You darling!” said Diamond, seeing what a lovely little toy-woman she was.

“Don’t be impertinent, Master Diamond,” said North Wind.

“If there’s one thing makes me more angry than another, it is the way you humans judge things by their size. I am quite as respectable now as I shall be six hours after this, when I take an East Indiaman by the royals, twist her round, and push her under.

You have no right to address me in such a fashion.”

But as she spoke, the tiny face wore the smile of a great, grand woman.

She was only having her own beautiful fun out of Diamond, and true woman’s fun never hurts.

“But look there!” she resumed. “Do you see a boat with one man in it-a green and white boat?”

“Yes; quite well.”

“That’s a poet.”

“I thought you said it was a bo-at.”

“Stupid pet! Don’t you know what a poet is?”

“Why, a thing to sail on the water in.”

“Well, perhaps you’re not so far wrong. Some poets do carry people over the sea. But I have no business to talk so much.

The man is a poet.”

“The boat is a boat,” said Diamond.

“Can’t you spell?” asked North Wind.

“Not very well.”

“So I see. A poet is not a bo-at, as you call it. A poet is a man who is glad of something, and tries to make other people glad of it too.”

“Ah! now I know. Like the man in the sweety-shop.”

“Not very. But I see it is no use. I wasn’t sent to tell you, and so I can’t tell you. I must be off. Only first just look at the man.”

“He’s not much of a rower” said Diamond-“paddling first with one fin and then with the other.”

“Now look here!” said North Wind.

And she flashed like a dragon-fly across the water, whose surface rippled and puckered as she passed. The next moment the man in the boat glanced about him, and bent to his oars. The boat flew over the rippling water. Man and boat and river were awake.

The same instant almost, North Wind perched again upon the river wall.

“How did you do that?” asked Diamond.

“I blew in his face,” answered North Wind. “I don’t see how that could do it,” said Diamond. “I daresay not. And therefore you will say you don’t believe it could.”

“No, no, dear North Wind. I know you too well not to believe you.”

“Well, I blew in his face, and that woke him up.”

“But what was the good of it?”

“Why! don’t you see? Look at him-how he is pulling. I blew the mist out of him.”

“How was that?”

“That is just what I cannot tell you.”

“But you did it.”

“Yes. I have to do ten thousand things without being able to tell how.”

“I don’t like that,” said Diamond.

He was staring after the boat.