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 . They could not understand this , and a cold fear fell upon all the three of them . ` Mother ! ' Wendy cried . ` That 's Wendy , ' she said , but still she was sure it was the dream . ` Mother ! '
` That 's XXXXX , ' she said .
Darling John Michael Mother Mrs. Wendy days fire first peeping