ar him. 'It would
be so splendid to tell the birds of this adventure,' he said coaxingly.
'I promise to come back,' he said solemnly, and meant it, too.

And in the end, you know, he flew away. Twice he came back from the
window, wanting to kiss his mother, but he feared the delight of it
might waken her, so at last he played her a lovely kiss on his pipe,
and then he flew back to the Gardens.

Many nights, and even months, passed before he asked the fairies for
his second wish; and I am not sure that I quite know why he delayed so
long. One reason was that he had so many good-byes to say, not only to
his particular friends, but to a hundred favourite spots. Then he had
his last sail, and his very last sail, and his last sail of all, and so
on. Again, a number of farewell feasts were given in his honour; and
another comfortable reason was that, after all, there was no hurry, for
his mother would never weary of waiting for him. This last reason
displeased old Solomon, for it was an encouragement to the birds to
procrastinate. Solomon had several excellent mottoes for keeping them
at their work, such as 'Never put off laying to-day because you can lay
to-morrow,' and 'In this world there are no second chances,' and yet
here was Peter gaily putting off and none the worse for it. The birds
pointed this out to each other, and fell into lazy habits.

But, mind you, though Peter was so slow in going back to his mother, he
was quite decided to go back. The best proof of this was his caution
with the fairies. They were most anxious that he should remain in the
Gardens to play to them, and to bring this to pass they tried to trick
him into making such a remark as 'I wish the grass was not so wet,' and
some of them danced out of time in the hope that he might cry, 'I do
wish you would keep time!' Then they would have said that this was his
second wish. But he smoked their design, and though on occasions he
began, 'I wish----' he always stopped in time. So when at last he said
to them bravely, 'I wish now to go back to mother for ever and always,'
they had to tickle his shoulders and let him go.

He went in a hurry in the end, because he had dreamt that his mother
was crying, and he knew what was the great thing she cried for, and
that a hug from her splendid Peter would quickly make her to smile.
Oh! he felt sure of it, and so eager was he to be nestling in her arms
that this time he flew straight to the window, wh