because they felt that she was going off to something nice to which they had not been invited. Novelty was beckoning to them as usual.

Crediting them with a nobler feeling, Wendy melted.

‘Dear ones,’ she said, ‘if you will all come with me I feel almost sure I can get my father and mother to adopt you.’

The invitation was meant specially for Peter; but each of the boys was thinking exclusively of himself, and at once they jumped with joy.

‘But won’t they think us rather a handful?’ Nibs asked in the middle of his jump.

‘Oh, no,’ said Wendy, rapidly thinking it out, ‘it will only mean having a few beds in the drawing-room; they can be hidden behind screens on first Thursdays.’

‘Peter, can we go?’ they all cried imploringly. They took it for granted that if they went he would go also, but really they scarcely cared. Thus children are ever ready, when novelty knocks, to desert their dearest ones.

‘All right,’ Peter replied with a bitter smile; and immediately they rushed to get their things.

‘And now, Peter,’ Wendy said, thinking she had put everything right, ‘I am going to give you your medicine before you go.’ She loved to give them medicine, and undoubtedly gave them too much. Of course it was only water, but it was out of a calabash, and she always shook the calabash and counted the drops, which gave it a certain medicinal quality. On this occasion, however, she did not give Peter his draught, for just as she had prepared it, she saw a look on his face that made her heart sink.

‘Get your things, Peter,’ she cried, shaking.

‘No,’ he answered, pretending indifference, ‘I am not going with you, Wendy.’

‘Yes, Peter.’

‘No.’

To show that her departure would leave him unmoved, he skipped up and down the room, playing gaily on his heartless pipes. She had to run about after him, though it was rather undignified.

‘To find your mother,’ she coaxed.

Now, if Peter had ever quite had a mother, he no longer missed her. He could do very well without one. He had thought them out, and remembered only their bad points.

‘No, no,’ he told Wendy decisively; ‘perhaps she would say I was old, and I just want always to be a little boy and to have fun.’

‘But, Peter——’

‘No.’

And so the others had to be told.

‘Peter isn’t coming.’