"
"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 her with their long upper lips, which
moved every way at once. That was their way of kissing her; and,
as she talked to Diamond, she would every now and then stroke
down their furry backs, or lift and play with their long ears.
They would, Diamond thought, have leaped upon her lap, but that
he was there already.
"I think," said she, after they had been sitting silent for
a while, "that if I were only a dream, you would not have been
able to love me so.
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