All children,
           except one,
         grow up.

    They soon know
         that they will grow 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
           [their house number
               on their street],
             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 is 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 instead of them
            there were
             pictures of babies without faces.

    She drew them
         when she
            should have been totting up.

    They were Mrs. Darling's guesses.

    Wendy came first,
           then John,
         then Michael.

    For a week
          or two after Wendy
        came it
           was doubtful
         whether they
            would be able
                  to keep her,
           as she
            was another mouth to feed.

    Mr. Darling
        was frightfully proud of her,
           but he was very honourable,
         and he
            sat on the edge
                   of Mrs. Darling's bed,
           holding her hand and
              calculating expenses,
         while she looked at
               him imploringly.

    She wanted to risk it,
           come what might,
         but that
            was not his way;
        his way
            was with a pencil
                   and a piece of paper,
           and if
             she confused him with suggestions
               he had
                  to begin
                       at the beginning again.

    "Now don't interrupt,"
         he would beg of her.

    "I have one
          pound seventeen here,
           and two and six