Mrs Darling quivered and went to the window. It was securely fastened. She looked out, and the night was peppered with stars. They were crowding round the house, as if curious to see what was to take place there, but she did not notice this, nor that one or two of the smaller ones winked at her. Yet a nameless fear clutched at her heart and made her cry, ‘Oh, how I wish that I wasn’t going to a party tonight!’

Even Michael, already half asleep, knew that she was perturbed, and he asked, ‘Can anything harm us, mother, after the night-lights are lit?’

‘Nothing, precious,’ she said; ‘they are the eyes a mother leaves behind her to guard her children.’

She went from bed to bed singing enchantments over them, and little Michael flung his arms round her. ‘Mother,’ he cried, ‘I’m glad of you.’ They were the last words she was to hear from him for a long time.

No. 27 was only a few yards distant, but there had been a slight fall of snow, and Father and Mother Darling picked their way over it deftly not to soil their shoes. They were already the only persons in the street, and all the stars were watching them. Stars are beautiful, but they may not take an active part in anything, they must just look on for ever. It is a punishment put on them for something they did so long ago that no star now knows what it was. So the older ones have become glassy-eyed and seldom speak (winking is the star language), but the little ones still wonder. They are not really friendly to Peter, who has a mischievous way of stealing up behind them and trying to blow them out; but they are so fond of fun that they were on his side tonight, and anxious to get the grown-ups out of the way. So as soon as the door of 27 closed on Mr and Mrs Darling there was a commotion in the firmament, and the smallest of all the stars in the Milky Way screamed out:

‘Now, Peter!’