used not to sleep in the kennel?
John, Wendy said falteringly, perhaps we don t remember the old life
as well as we thought we did.
A chill fell upon them; and serve them right.
It is very careless of mother, said that young scoundrel John, not
to be here when we come back.
It was then that Mrs. Darling began playing again.
It s mother! cried Wendy, peeping.
So it is! said John.
Then are you not really our mother, Wendy? asked Michael, who was
surely sleepy.
Oh dear! exclaimed Wendy, with her first real twinge of remorse, it
was quite time we came back.
Let us creep in, John suggested, and put our hands over her eyes.
But Wendy, who saw that they must break the joyous news more gently,
had a better plan.
Let us all slip into our beds, and be there when she comes in, just as
if we had never been away.
And so when Mrs. Darling went back to the night-nursery to see if her
husband was asleep, all the beds were occupied. The children waited for
her cry of joy, but it did not come. She saw them, but she did not
believe they were there. You see, she saw them in their beds so often
in her dreams that she thought this was just the dream hanging around
her still.
She sat down in the chair by the fire, where in the old days she had
nursed them.
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