The nest is very sad . It is quite white , and the way we found it was wonderful . We were having another look among the bushes for David 's lost worsted ball , and instead of the ball we found a lovely nest made of the worsted , and containing four eggs , with scratches on them very like David 's handwriting , so we think they must have been the mother 's love-letters to the little ones inside . Every day we were in the Gardens we paid a call at the nest , taking care that no cruel boy should see us , and we dropped crumbs , and soon the bird knew us as friends , and sat in the nest looking at us kindly with her shoulders hunched up . But one day when we went there were only two eggs in the nest , and the next time there were none . The saddest part of it was that the poor little chaffinch fluttered about the bushes , looking so reproachfully at us that we knew she thought we had done it ; and though David tried to explain to her , it was so long since he had spoken the bird language that I fear she did not understand . He and I left the Gardens that day with our knuckles in our eyes . -LSB- Illustration : Tailpiece to ` The Grand Tour of the Gardens ' -RSB- -LSB- Illustration : Headpiece to ` Peter Pan ' -RSB- II PETER PAN If you ask your mother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a little girl , she will say , ` Why , of course I did , child ' ; and if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days , she will say , ` What a foolish question to ask ; certainly he did . ' Then if you ask your grandmother whether she knew about Peter Pan when she was a girl , she also says , ` Why , of course I did , child , ' but if you ask her whether he rode on a goat in those days , she says she never heard of his having a goat . Perhaps she has forgotten , just as she sometimes forgets your name and calls you Mildred , which is your mother 's name . Still , she could hardly forget such an important thing as the goat . Therefore there was no goat when your grandmother was a little girl . This shows that , in telling the story of Peter Pan , to begin with the goat -LRB- as most people do -RRB- is as silly as to put on your jacket before your vest . Of course , it also shows that Peter is ever so old , but he is really always the same age , so that does not matter in the least . His age is one week , and though he was born so long ago he has never had a birthday , nor is there the slightest chance of his ever having one . The reason is that he escaped from being a human when he was seven days old ; he escaped by the window and flew back to the Kensington Gardens . If you think he was the only baby who ever wanted to escape , it shows how completely you have forgotten your own young days . When David heard this story first he was quite certain that he had never tried to escape , but I told him to think back hard , pressing his hands to his temples , and when he had done this hard , and even harder , he distinctly remembered a youthful desire to return to the tree-tops , and with that memory came others , as that he had lain in bed planning to escape as soon as his mother was asleep , and how she had once caught him half-way up the chimney . All children could have such recollections if they would press their hands hard to their temples , for , having been birds before they were human , they are naturally a little wild during the first few weeks , and very itchy at the shoulders , where their wings used to be . So David tells me .
-LSB- Illustration : The fairies have their tiffs with the birds -RSB- I ought to mention here that the following is our way with a story : First I tell it to him , and then he tells it to me , the understanding being that it is quite a different story ; and then I retell it with his additions , and so we go on until no one could say whether it is more his XXXXX or mine .
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