For a fortnight, Diamond went on driving his cab and helping his family. Some people began to know him and to look for him to drive them where they wanted to go. One old gentleman who lived near the stables hired him to carry him into the city every morning at a certain hour. And Diamond was as regular as clock work. After that fortnight, his father was able to go out again. Then Diamond began to think about little Nanny and went off to inquire about her.

The first day his father took up his work again, Diamond went with him as usual. In the afternoon, however, his father went home and left Diamond to drive the cab for the rest of the day. It was hard for old Diamond to do all the work but they could not afford to have another horse. They saved him as much as they could and fed him well and he did bravely.

The next morning, his father was so much stronger that Diamond thought he might go and ask Mr. Raymond to take him to see Nanny. Mr. Raymond was quite willing to go and so they walked over to the hospital which was close at hand.

When Diamond followed Mr. Raymond into the room where those children lay who had got over the worst of their illness, and were growing better, he saw a number of little iron beds. Each one of them stood with its head to the wall and in each one was a child whose face showed just how far it had left the pain behind and was getting well. Diamond looked all around but he could see no Nanny. He turned to Mr. Raymond with a question in his eyes.

“Well?” said Mr. Raymond.

“Nanny’s not here,” said Diamond.

“Oh, yes, she is.”

“I don’t see her!”

“I do, though. There she is.”

He pointed to a bed right in front of where Diamond was standing.

“That’s not Nanny!” cried Diamond.

“Yes, it is Nanny. I have seen her a great many times since you have, and that is she.”

So Diamond looked again and looked hard. “If that is Nanny,” said Diamond to himself, “then she must have been at the back of the north wind. That is why she looks so different.” He said nothing aloud, only stared. And as he stared, something of the face of the old Nanny began to come out in the face of the new Nanny. The old Nanny had been somewhat rough in her speech, her face rather hard, and she had not kept herself clean — how could she! Now, in her fresh white bed, she looked sweet and gentle and refined.

“Surely North Wind has had something to do with it,” thought Diamond. In her weeks of sickness, had North Wind carried Nanny to the country at her back — as she once had carried him — and changed her from a rough girl to a gentle maiden? As he gazed, the best of the old face, the good and true part of the old Nanny, dawned upon him like the moon coming out of a cloud. He saw that it was Nanny, indeed — but very worn and grown almost beautiful.