You would be
nobody then, and I could not bear that. You ain't a dream, are
you, dear North Wind? Do say No, else I shall cry, and come
awake, and you'll be gone for ever. I daren't dream about you
once again if you ain't anybody."
"I'm either not a dream, or there's something better that's
not a dream, Diamond," said North Wind, in a rather sorrowful
tone, he thought.
"But it's not something better -- it's you I want, North
Wind," he persisted, already beginning to cry a little.
She made no answer, but rose with him in her arms and
sailed away over the tree-tops till they came to a meadow, where
a flock of sheep was feeding.
"Do you remember what the song you were singing a week ago
says about Bo-Peep -- how she lost her sheep, but got twice as
many lambs?" asked North Wind, sitting down on the grass, and
placing him in her lap as before.
"Oh yes, I do, well enough," answered Diamond; "but I never
just quite liked that rhyme."
"Why not, child?"
"Because it seems to say one's as good as another, or two
new ones are better than one that's lost. I've been thinking
about it a great deal, and it seems to me that although any one
sixpence is as good as any other sixpence, not twenty lambs
would do instead of one sheep whose face you knew.
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