He looked into the fire, and there was a long silence. After a while he shook his shoulders like a water-dog.
"Now, Caroline," he said briskly, "here's the way of this business. You can't wear knickers until you're one of the boys, and you can't be one of the boys until you wear knickers. Do you see? So you don't get anywhere."
Caroline looked puzzled. She was suddenly overcome with sleep, and the old familiar names and ways tasted of home and comfort to her soul.
"You're too nice to be a boy, Caroline," said Peter, leaning over her and brushing her azalea-crowned hair tenderly with his lips. "If you persist in this plan of running away to be a boy, some boy, growing up anxiously, somewhere, will never forgive you! Take my advice, and wait—will you? Say 'Yes, Peter.'"
"Yes, Peter," Caroline murmured, drowsily.
"Good girl! Then I'll take you home with my little donkey. I don't believe they've missed you yet. You've come four miles, though, you little gypsy!"
He disappeared behind the trees, and Caroline nodded. Later she woke sufficiently to find herself and Rufus on the blue blanket on the bottom of a little donkey cart; Peter stood by the gentle, long-eared head.
"Thank you, Peter," she murmured, half asleep, "and you'll see Aunt Edith, won't you?"
"I don't believe so," he said, very low. "Not yet. Tell her Peter brought you back. Just Peter. But he can't come yet. Get up, Jenny!"
They wound out by an old wood road. A cool spiciness flowed though the green aisles, and as the tiny donkey struck into a dog trot, the man striding easily at her head, a far-away cock crowed shrilly and the dawn gleamed white.