NEXT morning consternation reigned in the nursery, for nurse coming in early to light the wood fire, found the electric lights burning, everything overturned, and the whole place looking as if it had been visited by a cyclone.

All the toys were lying about wherever they had happened to drop when surprised in their antics by Sally’s sudden awakening. Nurse’s work basket lay overturned on the floor with all its contents spilled out and her favorite tomato pincushion piteously emptying forth its sawdust vitals through a yawning rent in its side.

A basket of waxen fruits, perpetrated by Sally’s grandmother in her youth, had been thrown down from the shelf, and all the beautiful peaches and pears and apples lay ruined on the carpet mixed with the fragments of the glass shade that had covered them.

Most deplorable of all, nurse’s best bonnet had been dragged from its box and the gorgeous bunch of grapes that adorned its brim had been torn off and lay crushed and mangled on the floor.

Everything bore the mark of rapacious little teeth. Therefore nurse’s theory favored rats, and mamma shuddered at the mere thought of such dreadful little creatures being so close to her darling.

Such a thing had never before occurred in the annals of the nursery. Nurse wept over her bonnet and Sally over the ruined fruit which had been one of her chief treasures. She hated, oh, how she hated those dreadful marauding rats, who had done such damage with their sharp little teeth. Supposing that they had attacked Peter Pan and his beloved family? The thought was too terrible for words. She immediately resolved that in the future, Rough House, the beautiful Scotch collie, should sleep in the nursery, a plan that mamma entirely approved.

Never for one moment did Sally suspect Peter Pan, sitting so calmly in the bosom of his family, of being the author of the tragedy.

She had taken off his pajamas and dressed him for the day in a smart white sweater with leggings to match, and a beautiful white toboggan cap with a pink tassel that hung down at one side. To be sure, the tendency of the tassel was rather to make things topheavy on its own particular side, so that the toboggan cap was somewhat inclined to tilt rakishly over one eye.

This, however, was arranged by Sally with many a loving pat, and she gathered him affectionately in her arms, fancying that a queer expression flashed into his bright black eyes as she and the nurse discussed the feasibility of allowing Rough House to sleep in the nursery.

Nurse had been very much disturbed by the fact that she had found the night light extinguished, although the little vessel in which the wick floated was nearly half full of oil.

Rats could never have done a thing like that, she said to herself, neither could they have turned on the electric lights, nor yet scattered all the toys about the nursery floor in the grotesque confusion in which they had been found. However, she kept her ideas to herself, for the subject of ghosts and fairies was a strictly forbidden one in the nursery.

Only Sally herself might have explained the matter of the electric lights, but she intuitively felt that for Peter Pan’s sake she must never, never mention anything that she had heard or seen without his permission; and somehow she felt pretty sure that this he would be rather unwilling to grant.

In point of fact the little girl was rather beginning to wonder if it had not all been a dream.

However, she did not allow the matter to trouble her gay little brain, and was the picture of delighted happiness when an hour later, accompanied by mamma and nurse, she stepped into the big motor car and rolled away down town to the shopping district, carrying Peter Pan, who wore an altogether angelic expression, and nobody in the world would ever have suspected that the demure rascal, although somewhat disturbed at the fuss caused by his escapade of the night before, was even then planning some new performance for the ensuing evening.

This shopping trip was instituted chiefly for the benefit of nurse, who was delighted with the gift of a new bonnet that fairly bristled with grapes, while Sally was overjoyed with a beautiful set of library furniture for the doll’s house. After this the little girl was lifted to the loftiest pinnacle of enjoyment by luncheon at one of the fine cafÉs. Mamma allowed her to select the dishes she liked best, although nurse was rather inclined to shake her head over a combination of oysters, chicken salad, eclairs and cafÉ parfait, she herself being more inclined for beefsteak and baked potato. But mamma laughingly declared that it would do no harm for once and Sally enjoyed the menu to its fullest extent, now and then pretending to feed the Teddy bear, who sat up stiffly in a chair by himself, with a biscuit between his paws. After the jolly luncheon another surprise was in store for Sally—a matinee of Buster Brown, over which the child was enraptured. But I regret to say that the play supplied Peter Pan’s already fertile brain with several ideas which he could very well have done without.

It was very close to dinner time when the very happy if very tired little girl trotted upstairs to the nursery hugging Peter Pan to her heart, and rather wondering to hear voices through the half closed door. Then as she entered a sort of whirlwind punctuated by kisses enveloped her, and after the first breathless moment she could only cry out, “Oh Bob! I’m so glad!” and sure enough Bob it was, come back somewhat unexpected from Florida, where he had gone to spend part of the winter with the two pretty aunties whose absence had made a great gap in Sally’s small social circle.

They were all there, and all wanting to hug Sally at once and indeed the dinner bell was ringing before nurse was able to carry her off to be made fresh and pretty for the evening meal.

How good it was to see Bob’s dear brown face and to hear him telling of the fine times they had had down in the beautiful land where it is always summer. Sally could scarcely wait until dinner was ended and ate little herself, but she greatly enjoyed watching Bob while he satisfied the hearty appetite that rightfully belonged to a little man of twelve.

As soon as the meal was ended, the children hurried upstairs and Sally introduced her brother to Peter Pan and his family.

Bob thought the bears a great acquisition and then the two children, curled upon the hearth rug before the crackling and snapping grate fire, toasted marshmallows and popped chestnuts which they could not eat, but which, although they did not know it, were destined for the delectation of the Teddy bears later on.

For these rascals, as soon as the children had been tucked up in bed, came hopping and skipping with eagerness and greedily gobbled up the last crumb, and then held a council of war which resulted in a scheme that they were not, however, able to carry out at once, owing to other plans now being formulated by Papa Doctor.