They couldn't get out at all, but were torn away and strangled.

And yet North Wind heard them, and in her answer it seemed to Diamond that just because she was so big and could not help it, and just because her ear and her mouth must seem to him so dreadfully far away, she spoke to him more tenderly and graciously than ever before.

Her voice was like the bass of a deep organ, without the groan in it; like the most delicate of violin tones without the wail in it; like the most glorious of trumpet-ejaculations without the defiance in it; like the sound of falling water without the clatter and clash in it: it was like all of them and neither of them--all of them without their faults, each of them without its peculiarity: after all, it was more like his mother's voice than anything else in the world.
"Diamond, dear," she said, "be a man.

What is fearful to you is not the least fearful to me." "But it can't hurt you," murmured Diamond, "for you're it." "Then if I'm it, and have you in my arms, how can it hurt you ?" "Oh yes! I see," whispered Diamond.

"But it looks so dreadful, and it pushes me about so." "Yes, it does, my dear.