He thought he could distinguish the vapoury form of North Wind, seated as he had left her, on the other side. Hastily he descended the tree, and to his amazement found that the map or model of the country still lay at his feet.

He stood in it. With one stride he had crossed the river; with another he had reached the ridge of ice; with the third he stepped over its peaks, and sank wearily down at North Wind’s knees.

For there she sat on her doorstep. The peaks of the great ridge of ice were as lofty as ever behind her, and the country at her back had vanished from Diamond’s view.

North Wind was as still as Diamond had left her. Her pale face was white as the snow, and her motionless eyes were as blue as the caverns in the ice. But the instant Diamond touched her, her face began to change like that of one waking from sleep.

Light began to glimmer from the blue of her eyes.

A moment more, and she laid her hand on Diamond’s head, and began playing with his hair. Diamond took hold of her hand, and laid his face to it. She gave a little start.

“How very alive you are, child!” she murmured. “Come nearer to me.”

By the help of the stones all around he clambered up beside her, and laid himself against her bosom. She gave a great sigh, slowly lifted her arms, and slowly folded them about him, until she clasped him close. Yet a moment, and she roused herself, and came quite awake; and the cold of her bosom, which had pierced Diamond’s bones, vanished.

“Have you been sitting here ever since I went through you, dear North Wind?” asked Diamond, stroking her hand.

“Yes,” she answered, looking at him with her old kindness.

“Ain’t you very tired?”

“No; I’ve often had to sit longer. Do you know how long you have been?”

“Oh! years and years,” answered Diamond.

“You have just been seven days,” returned North Wind.

“I thought I had been a hundred years!” exclaimed Diamond.

“Yes, I daresay,” replied North Wind. “You’ve been away from here seven days; but how long you may have been in there is quite another thing. Behind my back and before my face things are so different! They don’t go at all by the same rule.”

“I’m very glad,” said Diamond, after thinking a while.

“Why?” asked North Wind.

“Because I’ve been such a long time there, and such a little while away from mother. Why, she won’t be expecting me home from Sandwich yet!”

“No. But we mustn’t talk any longer. I’ve got my orders now, and we must be off in a few minutes.”

Next moment Diamond found himself sitting alone on the rock.

North Wind had vanished. A creature like a great humble-bee or cockchafer flew past his face; but it could be neither, for there were no insects amongst the ice. It passed him again and again, flying in circles around him, and he concluded that it must be North Wind herself, no bigger than Tom Thumb when his mother put him in the nutshell lined with flannel. But she was no longer vapoury and thin. She was solid, although tiny. A moment more, and she perched on his shoulder.

“Come along, Diamond,” she said in his ear, in the smallest and highest of treble voices; “it is time we were setting out for Sandwich.”

Diamond could just see her, by turning his head towards his shoulder as far as he could, but only with one eye, for his nose came between her and the other.

“Won’t you take me in your arms and carry me?” he said in a whisper, for he knew she did not like a loud voice when she was small.

“Ah! you ungrateful boy,” returned North Wind, smiling “how dare you make game of me? Yes, I will carry you, but you shall walk a bit for your impertinence first. Come along.”

She jumped from his shoulder, but when Diamond looked for her upon the ground, he could see nothing but a little spider with long legs that made its way over the ice towards the south. It ran very fast indeed for a spider, but Diamond ran a long way before it, and then waited for it. It was up with him sooner than he had expected, however, and it had grown a good deal. And the spider grew and grew and went faster and faster, till all at once Diamond discovered that it was not a spider, but a weasel; and away glided the weasel, and away went Diamond after it, and it took all the run there was in him to keep up with the weasel. And the weasel grew, and grew, and grew, till all at once Diamond saw that the weasel was not a weasel but a cat. And away went the cat, and Diamond after it.

And when he had run half a mile, he found the cat waiting for him, sitting up and washing her face not to lose time. And away went the cat again, and Diamond after it. But the next time he came up with the cat, the cat was not a cat, but a hunting-leopard.

And the hunting-leopard grew to a jaguar, all covered with spots like eyes.