night-lights, and presently the sewing lay on Mrs. Darling's lap. Then
her head nodded, oh, so gracefully. She was asleep. Look at the four
of them, Wendy and Michael over there, John here, and Mrs. Darling
by the fire. There should have been a fourth night-light.

  While she slept she had a dream. She dreamt that the Neverland had
come too near and that a strange boy had broken through from it. He
did not alarm her, for she thought she had seen him before in the
faces of many women who have no children. Perhaps he is to be found in
the faces of some mothers also. But in her dream he had rent the
film that obscures the Neverland, and she saw Wendy and John and
Michael peeping through the gap.

  The dream by itself would have been a trifle, but while she was
dreaming the window of the nursery blew open, and a boy did drop on
the floor. He was accompanied by a strange light, no bigger than
your fist, which darted about the room like a living thing, and I
think it must have been this light that wakened Mrs. Darling.

  She started up with a cry, and saw the boy, and somehow she knew
at once that he was Peter Pan. If you or I or Wendy had been there
we should have seen that he was very like Mrs. Darling's kiss. He
was a lovely boy, clad in skeleton leaves and the juices that ooze out
of trees, but the most entrancing thing about him was that he had
all his first teeth. When he saw she was a grown-up, he gnashed the
little pearls at her.

                             CHAPTER II.

                             THE SHADOW.

  Mrs. Darling screamed, and, as if in answer to a bell, the door
opened, and Nana entered, returned from her evening out. She growled
and sprang at the boy, who leapt lightly through the window. Again
Mrs. Darling screamed, this time in distress for him, for she
thought he was killed, and she ran down into the street to look for
his little body, but it was not there; and she looked up, and in the
black night she could see nothing but what she thought was a
shooting star.

  She returned to the nursery, and found Nana with something in her
mouth, which proved to be the boy's shadow. As he leapt at the
window Nana had closed it quickly, too late to catch him, but his
shadow had not had time to get out; slam went the window and snapped
it off.

  You may be sure Mrs. Darling examined the shadow carefully, but it
was quite the ordinary kind.

  Nana had no doubt of what was the best thing to do with this shadow.
She hung it out at the window, meaning "He is sure to come back for
it; let us put it where he can get it easily without disturbing the
children."

  But unfortunately Mrs. Darling could not leave it hanging out at the
window, it looked so like the washing and lowered the whole tone of
the house. She thought of showing it to Mr. Darling, but he was
totting up winter great-coats for John and Michael, with a wet towel
round his head to keep his brain clear, and it seemed a shame to
trouble him; besides, she knew exactly what he would say: "It all
comes of having a dog for a nurse."

  She decided to roll the shadow up and put it away carefully in a
drawer, until a fitting opportunity came for telling her husband. Ah
me!

  The opportunity came a week later, on that never-to-be-forgotten
Friday. Of course it was a Friday.

  "I ought to have been specially careful on a Friday," she used to
say afterwards to her husband, while perhaps Nana was on the other
side of her, holding her hand.

  "No, no," Mr. Darling always said, "I am responsible for it all.
I, George Darling, did it. Mea culpa, mea culpa." He had had a
classical education.

  They sat thus night after night recalling that fatal Friday, till
every detail of it was stamped on their brains and came through on the
other side like the faces on a bad coinage.

  "If only I had not accepted that invitation to dine at 27," Mrs.
Darling said.

  "If only I had not poured my medicine into Nana's bowl," said Mr.
Darling.

  "If only I had pretended to like the medicine," was what Nana's
wet eyes said.

  "My liking for parties, George."

  "My fatal gift of humour, dearest."

  "My touchiness about trifles, dear master and mistress."

  Then one or more of them would break down altogether; Nana at the
thought, "It's true, it's true, they ought not to have had a dog for a
nurse." Many a time it was Mr. Darling who put the handkerchief to
Nana's eyes.