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 of your own. How proud
of him they are; and very right and proper, too.

But why does Peter sit so long on the rail, why does he not tell his
mother that he has come back?

I quite shrink from the truth, which is that he sat there in two minds.
Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother, and sometimes he looked
longingly at the window. Certainly it would be pleasant to be her boy
again, but, on the other hand, what times those had been in the Gardens!
Was he so sure that he would enjoy wearing clothes again? He popped off
the bed and opened some drawers to have a look at his old garments. They
were still there, but he could not remember how you put them on. The
socks, for instance, were they worn on the hands or on the feet? He was
about to try one of them on his hand, when he had a great adventure.
Perhaps the drawer had creaked; at any rate, his mother woke up, for
he heard her say "Peter," as if it was the most lovely word in the
language. He remained sitting on the floor and held his breath,
wondering how she knew that he had come back. If she said "Peter" again,
he meant to cry "Mother" and run to her. But she spoke no more, she
made little moans only, and when next he peeped at her she was once more
asleep, with tears on her face.

It made Peter very miserable, and what do you think was the first
thing he did? Sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed, he played a
beautiful lullaby to his mother on his pipe. He had made it up himself
out of the way she said "Peter," and he never stopped playing until she
looked happy.

He thought this so clever of him that he could scarcely resist wakening
her to hear her say, "Oh, Peter, how exquisitely you play." However, as
she now seemed comfortable, he again cast looks at the window. You must
not think that he meditated flying away and never coming back. He had
quite decided to be his mother's boy, but hesitated about beginning
to-night. It was the second wish which troubled him. He no longer meant
to make it a wish to be a bird, but not to ask for a second wish seemed
wasteful, and, of course