"What is REAL?" asked the Rabbit one day, when they were

lying side by side near the nursery tender, before Nana came to

tidy the room. "Does it mean having things that buzz inside you

and a stick-out handle?"

"Real isn t how you are made," said the Skin Horse. "It s a

thing that happens to you. When a child loves you for a long, long

time, not just to play with, but REALLY loves you, then you be-

come Real."

"Does it hurt?" asked the Rabbit.

"Sometimes," said the Skin Horse, for he was always truthful.

"When you are Real you don t mind being hurt."

"Does it happen all at once, like being wound up," he asked,

"or bit by bit?"

"It doesn t happen all at once," said the Skin Horse. "You

become, it takes a long time. Thal s why it doesn t often happen to

people who break easily, or have sharp edges, or who have to be

carcfnlly kept. Generally, by the time you are Real, most of your

hair has been loved off, and your eyes drop out and you get loose

in the joints arid very shabby. But these things don t matter at all,

because once you are Real you can t be ugly, except to people who

don t understand."