r
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 were he to find out the place he would take every one of
them.

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 revisit 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 marshes
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 build the house merely because it
is so pretty, but Peter rides round in memory of Maimie and because he
still loves to do just as he believes real boys would do.

But you must not think that, because somewhere among the trees the
little house is twinkling, it is a safe thing to remain in the Gardens
after Lock-out Time. If the bad ones among the fairies happen to be out
that night they will certainly mischief you, and even though they are
not, you may perish of cold and dark before Peter Pan comes round. He
has been too late several times, and when he sees he is too late he runs
back to the Thrush's Nest for his paddle, of which Maimie had told him
the true use, and he digs a grave for the child and erects a little
tombstone and carves the poor thing's initials on it. He does this at
once because he thinks it is what real boys would do, and you must have
noticed the little stones and that there are always two together. He
puts them in twos because it seems less lonely. I think that quite the
most touching sight in th