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CHAPTER I
PEtER BREAkS tHROuGH

ll children, except one, grow up. they soon know that they will grow
A up, and the way wendy knew was this. One day when she was two
years old she was playing in a garden, and she plucked another flower and
ran with it to her mother. I suppose she must have looked rather delightful,
for Mrs darling put her hand to her heart and cried, ‘Oh, why can’t you
remain like this for ever!’ this was all that passed between them on the
subject, but henceforth wendy knew that she must grow up. You always
know after you are two. two is the beginning of the end.
Of course they lived at 14, and until wendy came her mother was the
chief one. She was a lovely lady, with a romantic mind and such a sweet
mocking mouth. Her romantic mind was like the tiny boxes, one within the
other, that come from the puzzling East, however many you discover there
is always one more; and her sweet mocking mouth had one kiss on it that
wendy could never get, though there it was, perfectly conspicuous in the
right-hand corner.
the way Mr darling won her was this: the many gentlemen who had
been boys when she was a girl discovered simultaneously that they loved
her, and they all ran to her house to propose to her except Mr darling, who
took a cab and nipped in first, and so he got her. He got all of her, except
the innermost box and the kiss. He never knew about the box, and in time he
gave up trying for the kiss. wendy thought napoleon could have got it, but I
can picture him trying, and then going off in a passion, slamming the door.
Mr darling used to boast to wendy that her mother not only loved him
but respected him. He was one of those deep ones who know about stocks
and shares. Of course no one really knows, but he quite seemed to know,
and he often said stocks were up and shares were down in a way that
would have made any woman respect him.
Mrs darling was married in white, and at first she kept the books
perfectly, almost gleefully, as if it were a game, not so much as a brussels
sprout was missing; but by and by whole cauliflowers dropped out, and

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