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EARLY DAYS
15

know what a kiss was, but being a nice little girl of motherly disposition, she did not hurt his feelings by laughing at him, but simply placed the thimble on his finger.

Peter admired the thimble very much. "Shall I give you a kiss?" he asked and, jerking a button off his coat, solemnly presented it to her.

Wendy at once fastened it on a chain which she wore round her neck, and, forgetting the puzzle in his mind, she once more asked him for a kiss.

Immediately he returned the thimble. "Oh! I didn't mean a kiss, I meant a thimble!"

"What's that?" he asked.

"It's like this," replied Wendy, and gently kissed his cheek.

"Oh!" cried Peter, "how nice!" and he began to give her thimbles in return, and ever afterwards he called a kiss a thimble, and a thimble a kiss.