up which his father always came to fetch the hay for Diamond's dinner.
Through the opening in the floor the faint gleam of the-stable lantern
was enticing, and Diamond thought he would run down that way.

The stair went close past the loose-box in which Diamond the horse lived.
When Diamond the boy was half-way down, he remembered that it
was of no use to go this way, for the stable-door was locked.
But at the same moment there was horse Diamond's great head
poked out of his box on to the ladder, for he knew boy Diamond
although he was in his night-gown, and wanted him to pull his
ears for him. This Diamond did very gently for a minute or so,
and patted and stroked his neck too, and kissed the big horse,
and had begun to take the bits of straw and hay out of his mane,
when all at once he recollected that the Lady North Wind was waiting
for him in the yard.

"Good night, Diamond," he said, and darted up the ladder,
across the loft, and down the stair to the door. But when he
got out into the yard, there was no lady.

Now it is always a dreadful thing to think there is somebody and
find nobody. Children in particular have not made up their minds to it;
they generally cry at nobody, especially when they wake up at night.
But it was an especial disappointment to Diamond, for his little heart
had been beating with joy: the face of the North Wind was so grand!
To have a lady like that for a friend--with such long hair, too!
Why, it was longer than twenty Diamonds' tails! She was gone.
And there he stood, with his bare feet on the stones of the paved yard.

It was a clear night overhead, and the stars were shining.