nd 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, though
he had long forgotten it, that she always gave her hair a holiday at
night. How sweet the frills of her nightgown were! He was very glad
she was such a pretty mother.

But she looked sad, and he knew why she looked sad. One of her arms
moved as if it wanted to go round something, and he knew what it wanted
to go round.

'O mother!' said Peter to himself, 'if you just knew who is sitting on
the rail at the foot of the bed.'

Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made, and he could
see by her face that she liked it. He knew he had but to say 'Mother'
ever so softly, and she would wake up. They always wake up at once if
it is you that says their name. Then she would give such a joyous cry
and squeeze him tight. How nice that would be to him, but oh! how
exquisitely delicious it would be to her. That, I am afraid, is how
Peter regarded it. In returning to his mother he never doubted that he
was giving her the greatest treat a woman can have. Nothing can be
more splendid, he thought, than to have a little boy