The window was wide open , just as he knew it would be , and in he fluttered , and there was his mother lying asleep . Peter alighted softly on the wooden rail at the foot of the bed and had a good look at her . She lay with her head on her hand , and the hollow in the pillow was like a nest lined with her brown wavy hair . He remembered , though he had long forgotten it , that she always gave her hair a holiday at night . How sweet the frills of her night-gown were . He was very glad she was such a pretty mother . But she looked sad , and he knew why she looked sad . One of her arms moved as if it wanted to go round something , and he knew what it wanted to go round . `` Oh , mother , '' said Peter to himself , `` if you just knew who is sitting on the rail at the foot of the bed . '' Very gently he patted the little mound that her feet made , and he could see by her face that she liked it . He knew he had but to say `` Mother '' ever so softly , and she would wake up . They always wake up at once if it is you that says their name . Then she would give such a joyous cry and squeeze him tight . How nice that would be to him , but oh , how exquisitely delicious it would be to her . That I am afraid is how Peter regarded it . In returning to his mother he never doubted that he was giving her the greatest treat a woman can have . Nothing can be more splendid , he thought , than to have a little boy of your own . How proud of him they are ; and very right and proper , too . But why does Peter sit so long on the rail , why does he not tell his mother that he has come back ? I quite shrink from the truth , which is that he sat there in two minds .
Sometimes he looked longingly at his mother , and sometimes he XXXXX longingly at the window .
alighted come knew looked made regarded returning say sit sitting