Now Wendy was every inch a woman, though there were not very
many inches, and she peeped out of the bed-clothes.

"Do you really think so, Peter?"

"Yes, I do."

"I think it's perfectly sweet of you," she declared, "and I'll
get up again," and she sat with him on the side of the bed. She
also said she would give him a kiss if he liked, but Peter did
not know what she meant, and he held out his hand expectantly.

"Surely you know what a kiss is?" she asked, aghast.

"I shall know when you give it to me," he replied stiffly, and
not to hurt his feeling she gave him a thimble.

"You did a little," Peter said carelessly, and continued to
dance.

"A little!" she replied with hauteur [pride]; "if I am no use
I can at least withdraw," and she sprang in the most dignified
way into bed and covered her face with the blankets.

To induce her to look up he pretended to be going away, and
when this failed he sat on the end of the bed and tapped her
gently with his foot. "Wendy," he said, "don't withdraw. I
can't help crowing, Wendy, when I'm pleased with myself." Still
she would not look up, though she was listening eagerly.
"Wendy," he continued, in a voice that no woman has ever yet been
able to resist, "Wendy, one girl is more use than twenty boys."

Perhaps

"I should have ironed it," Wendy said thoughtfully, but
Peter, boylike, was indifferent to appearances, and he was now
jumping about in the wildest glee. Alas, he had already
forgotten that he owed his bliss to Wendy. He thought he had
attached the shadow himself. "How clever I am!" he crowed
rapturously, "oh, the cleverness of me!"

It is humiliating to have to confess that this conceit of Peter
was one of his most fascinating qualities. To put it with brutal
frankness, there never was a cockier boy.

But for the moment Wendy was shocked. "You conceit [braggart],"
she exclaimed, with frightful sarcasm; "of course I did nothing!"

But she

was exulting in his ignorance. "I shall sew it on for
you, my little man," she said, though he was tall as herself, and
she got out her housewife [sewing bag], and sewed the shadow on
to Peter's foot.

"I daresay it will hurt a little," she warned him.

"Oh, I shan't cry," said Peter, who was already of the opinion
that he had never cried in his life. And he clenched his teeth
and did not cry, and soon his shadow was behaving properly,
though still a little creased.

"Yes."

Then Wendy saw the shadow on the floor, looking so draggled,
and she was frightfully sorry for Peter. "How awful!" she said,
but she could not help smiling when she saw that he had been
trying to stick it on with soap. How exactly like a boy!

Fortunately she knew at once what to do. "It must be sewn on,"
she said, just a little patronisingly.

"What's sewn?" he asked.

"You're dreadfully ignorant."

"No, I'm not."

Don't have

"a mother," he said. Not only had he no mother, but
he had not the slightest desire to have one. He thought them
very over-rated persons. Wendy, however, felt at once that she
was in the presence of a tragedy.

"O Peter, no wonder you were crying," she said, and got out of
bed and ran to him.

"I wasn't crying about mothers," he said rather indignantly.
"I was crying because I can't get my shadow to stick on.
Besides, I wasn't crying."

"It has come off?"

"Is that all?"

"What's your name?" he asked.

"Wendy Moira Angela Darling," she replied with some
satisfaction. "What is your name?"

"Peter Pan."

She was already sure that he must be Peter, but it did seem a
comparatively short name.


"Yes," he said rather sharply. He felt for the first time that
it was a shortish name.

"I'm so sorry," said Wendy Moira Angela.

"It doesn't matter," Peter gulped.

She asked where he lived.

"Second to the right," said Peter, "and then straight on till
morning."

"What a funny address!"

Peter had a sinking. For the first time he felt that perhaps
it was a funny address.

"No, it isn't," he said.

"I mean," Wendy said nicely, remembering that she was hostess,
"is that what they put on the letters?"

He wished she had not mentioned letters.

"Don't get any letters," he said contemptuously.

"But your mother gets letters?"

If he thought

at all, but I don't believe he ever thought, it
was that he and his shadow, when brought near each other, would
join like drops of water, and when they did not he was appalled.
He tried to stick it on with soap from the bathroom, but that
also failed. A shudder passed through Peter, and he sat on the
floor and cried.

His sobs woke Wendy, and she sat up in bed. She was not
alarmed to see a stranger crying on the nursery floor; she was
only pleasantly interested.

"Boy," she said courteously, "why are you crying?"

Peter could be exceeding polite also, having learned the grand
manner at fairy ceremonies, and he rose and bowed to her
beautifully. She was much pleased, and bowed beautifully to him
from the bed.

Oh, do come out of that jug,

" and tell me, do you know where
they put my shadow?"

The loveliest tinkle as of golden bells answered him. It is the
fairy language. You ordinary children can never hear it, but if
you were to hear it you would know that you had heard it once
before.

Tink said that the shadow was in the big box. She meant the
chest of drawers, and Peter jumped at the drawers, scattering
their contents to the floor with both hands, as kings toss
ha'pence to the crowd. In a moment he had recovered his shadow,
and in his delight he forgot that he had shut Tinker Bell up in
the drawer.

A moment

after the fairy's entrance the window was blown open
by the breathing of the little stars, and Peter dropped in. He
had carried Tinker Bell part of the way, and his hand was still
messy with the fairy dust.

"Tinker Bell," he called softly, after making sure that the
children were asleep, "Tink, where are you?" She was in a jug
for the moment, and liking it extremely; she had never been in a
jug before.

There was another light

in the room now, a thousand times
brighter than the night-lights, and in the time we have taken to
say this, it had been in all the drawers in the nursery, looking
for Peter's shadow, rummaged the wardrobe and turned every pocket
inside out. It was not really a light; it made this light by
flashing about so quickly, but when it came to rest for a second
you saw it was a fairy, no longer than your hand, but still
growing. It was a girl called Tinker Bell exquisitely gowned in
a skeleton leaf, cut low and square, through which her figure
could be seen to the best advantage. She was slightly inclined
to EMBONPOINT. [plump hourglass figure]

Chapter 3

COME AWAY, COME AWAY!

For a moment after Mr. and Mrs. Darling left the house the
night-lights by the beds of the three children continued to burn
clearly. They were awfully nice little night-lights, and one
cannot help wishing that they could have kept awake to see Peter;
but Wendy's light blinked and gave such a yawn that the other two
yawned also, and before they could close their mouths all the
three went out.

Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed,
and he asked, "Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-
lights are lit?"

"Nothing, precious," she said; "they are the eyes a mother
leaves behind her to guard her children."

She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and
little Michael flung his arms round her. "Mother," he cried,
"I'm glad of you." They were the last words she was to hear from
him for a long time.

No. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a
slight fall of snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their
way over it deftly not to soil their shoes. They were already
the only persons in the street, and all the stars were watching
them. Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part
in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment
put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now
knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and
seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones
still wonder. They are not really friendly to Peter, who had a
mischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow
them out; but they are so fond of fun that they were on his side
to-night, and anxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So
as soon as the door of 27 closed on Mr. and Mrs. Darling there
was a commotion in the firmament, and the smallest of all the
stars in the Milky Way screamed out:

"Now, Peter!"

Mrs. Darling

quivered and went to the window. It was securely
fastened. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars.
They were crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was
to take place there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or
two of the smaller ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear
clutched at her heart and made her cry, "Oh, how I wish that I
wasn't going to a party to-night!"

In the meantime Mrs. Darling had put the children to bed in
unwonted silence and lit their night-lights. They could hear
Nana barking, and John whimpered, "It is because he is chaining
her up in the yard," but Wendy was wiser.

"That is not Nana's unhappy bark," she said, little guessing
what was about to happen; "that is her bark when she smells
danger."

Danger!

"Are you sure, Wendy?"

"Oh, yes."

"George,"

And still Wendy hugged Nana. "That's right," he shouted.
"Coddle her! Nobody coddles me. Oh dear no! I am only the
breadwinner, why should I be coddled--why, why, why!"

Mrs. Darling entreated him, "not so loud; the
servants will hear you." Somehow they had got into the way of
calling Liza the servants.

"Let them!" he answered recklessly. "Bring in the whole world.
But I refuse to allow that dog to lord it in my nursery for an
hour longer."

The children wept, and Nana ran to him beseechingly, but he
waved her back. He felt he was a strong man again. "In vain, in
vain," he cried; "the proper place for you is the yard, and there
you go to be tied up this instant."

"George, George," Mrs. Darling whispered, "remember what I told
you about that boy."

Alas, he would not listen. He was determined to show who was
master in that house, and when commands would not draw Nana from
the kennel, he lured her out of it with honeyed words, and
seizing her roughly, dragged her from the nursery. He was
ashamed of himself, and yet he did it. It was all owing to his
too affectionate nature, which craved for admiration. When he
had tied her up in the back-yard, the wretched father went and
sat in the passage, with his knuckles to his eyes.