I have a goat for him to ride,
Observe me cast it far and wide.'_

She then flung her arms about as if she were sowing seed, and turned
round three times.

Next Tony said--

_'If P. doth find it waiting here,
Wilt ne'er again make me to fear?'_

And Maimie answered--

_'By dark or light I fondly swear
Never to see goats anywhere.'_

She also left a letter to Peter in a likely place, explaining what she
had done, and begging him to ask the fairies to turn the goat into one
convenient for riding on. Well, it all happened just as she hoped, for
Peter found the letter, and of course nothing could be easier for the
fairies than to turn the goat into a real one, and so that is how Peter
got the goat on which he now rides round the Gardens every night
playing sublimely on his pipe. And Maimie kept her promise, and never
frightened Tony with a goat again, though I have heard that she created
another animal. Until she was quite a big girl she continued to leave
presents for Peter in the Gardens (with letters explaining how humans
play with them), and she is not the only one who has done this. David
does it, for instance, and he and I know the likeliest place for
leaving them in, and we shall tell you if you like, but for mercy's
sake don't ask us before Porthos, for he is so fond of toys that, were
he to find out the place, he would take every one of them.

[Illustration: They will certainly mischief you (missing from book)]

Though Peter still remembers Maimie he is become as gay as ever, and
often in sheer happiness he jumps off his goat and lies kicking merrily
on the grass. Oh, he has a joyful time! But he has still a vague
memory that he was a human once, and it makes him especially kind to
the house-swallows when they visit the island, for house-swallows are
the spirits of little children who have died. They always build in the
eaves of the houses where they lived when they were humans, and
sometimes they try to fly in at a nursery window, and perhaps that is
why Peter loves them best of all the birds.

And the little house? Every lawful night (that is to say, every night
except ball nights) the fairies now build the little house lest there
should be a human child lost in the Gardens, and Peter rides the
marches looking for lost ones, and if he finds them he carries them on
his goat to the little house, and when they wake up they are in it, and
when they step out they see it. The fairies bu