then
said that for playing so beautifully she would give him the wish of his
heart. Then they all gathered round Peter to hear what was the wish of
his heart, but for a long time he hesitated, not being certain what it
was himself.

'If I chose to go back to mother,' he asked at last, 'could you give me
that wish?'

Now this question vexed them, for were he to return to his mother they
should lose his music, so the Queen tilted her nose contemptuously and
said, 'Pooh! ask for a much bigger wish than that.'

'Is that quite a little wish?' he inquired.

'As little as this,' the Queen answered, putting her hands near each
other.

'What size is a big wish?' he asked.

She measured it off on her skirt and it was a very handsome length.

Then Peter reflected and said, 'Well, then, I think I shall have two
little wishes instead of one big one.'

Of course, the fairies had to agree, though his cleverness rather
shocked them, and he said that his first wish was to go to his mother,
but with the right to return to the Gardens if he found her
disappointing. His second wish he would hold in reserve.

They tried to dissuade him, and even put obstacles in the way.

'I can give you the power to fly to her house,' the Queen said, 'but I
can't open the door for you.'

'The window I flew out at will be open,' Peter said confidently.
'Mother always keeps it open in the hope that I may fly back.'

'How do you know?' they asked, quite surprised, and, really, Peter
could not explain how he knew.

'I just do know,' he said.

So as he persisted in his wish, they had to grant it. The way they
gave him power to fly was this: They all tickled him on the shoulder,
and soon he felt a funny itching in that part, and then up he rose
higher and higher, and flew away out of the Gardens and over the
housetops.

It was so delicious that instead of flying straight to his own home he
skimmed away over St. Paul's to the Crystal Palace and back by the
river and Regent's Park, and by the time he reached his mother's window
he had quite made up his mind that his second wish should be to become
a bird.

The window was wide open, just as he knew it would be, and in he
fluttered, and there was his mother lying asleep. Peter alighted
softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had a good look at
her. She lay with her head on her hand, and the hollow in the pillow
was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair. He remembered, t