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And Nanny had come. After she recovered, she stayed with Mr.Raymond. Now in the new home in Kent, she lived with Diamond's family. She spent most of her time helping Diamond's mother, who was delighted to have a little girl in the house, just like a daughter.

Diamond had become the Raymonds's little page boy. They gave him a blue suit and his own room, high up in one of the dormers. The room had a window that faced the east lawn, which sloped away down into the woods. Diamond said it was the best room in the house. "It's the nearest to the north wind," he said.

And, of course, this made his parents very proud. They didn't mind that he stayed with the Raymonds, because they were right next door and they saw their little Diamond everyday.

Mr.Raymond didn't actually use Diamond as a page. He and his wife were just so fond of him that they wanted to be near him as much as they could. Mr.Raymond often put Diamond "to work" by giving him a book to read and asking his opinion of it. Sometimes it would be a book Mr.Raymond had written.

I had known Mr.Raymond for years. When he moved to The Mound we become neighbours, for I lived just down the lane. I began to visit the Raymonds quite often.

And that's how I met Diamond. He was sitting at the foot of a great beech tree a few yards from the lane, reading a book. I saw that the title was The Little Lady and the Goblin Prince. It was one Mr.Raymond had written.

After my visit with the Raymonds I walked past the tree on my way down the lane. Diamond wasn't there. But suddenly I stopped. I heard a voice, a soft, childish voice. I listened, very still.

"What would you see if I took you up to my little nest in the air?" came the sweet voice. "You would see the sky like a clear blue cup turned upside down there."

"Diamond?" I called.

"Yes?" came his voice. "I'm up in my nest."

"What do you do up there?"

Oh, I sit and look at the sky and I make songs."

"I can't see you," I said, straining my eyes to peer up through the thick branches.

"I can't see you either," he said, "but I can see the first star peeping out of the sky. I would like to get up inot the sky. "Don't you think I shall, someday?"

"Yes, I do. Tell me, what else do you see up there?"

"Nothing more, excpet a few leaves, and the big sky over me. But the wind is like kisses from a big lady. When I get up here I feel as if I am in North Wind's arms."

That was the first I heard of North Wind. But I would hear much more. Over the weeks that followed, I visited Diamond often. And he told me the story of the North Wind, as I've retold it in this book. Only he told me so much more that I thought I could never write all of it. After all, I thought, who would ever believe it?

Diamond spent a lot of time in his "nest." I would often be returning home after a visit to The Mound and would stop under the beech and listen. From up in the dark, swaying branches, under a deep blue sky sprinkled with the first stars of the evening, I would hear his soft voice, singing his songs.

I asked him where he got his songs. Sometimes he would say, "I made that one." And sometimes he would say, "I don't know. I found it somewhere," or, "I got that one at the back of the north wind."