That s three faults, Kitty, and you ve not been punished for any of
them yet. You know I m saving up all your punishments for Wednesday
week Suppose they had saved up all _my_ punishments! she went on,
talking more to herself than the kitten. What _would_ they do at the
end of a year? I should be sent to prison, I suppose, when the day
came. Or let me see suppose each punishment was to be going without a
dinner: then, when the miserable day came, I should have to go without
fifty dinners at once! Well, I shouldn t mind _that_ much! I d far
rather go without them than eat them!
Do you hear the snow against the window-panes, Kitty? How nice and
soft it sounds! Just as if some one was kissing the window all over
outside. I wonder if the snow _loves_ the trees and fields, that it
kisses them so gently? And then it covers them up snug, you know, with
a white quilt; and perhaps it says, Go to sleep, darlings, till the
summer comes again. And when they wake up in the summer, Kitty, they
dress themselves all in green, and dance about whenever the wind
blows oh, that s very pretty! cried Alice, dropping the ball of
worsted to clap her hands. And I do so _wish_ it was true! I m sure
the woods look sleepy in the autumn, when the leaves are getting brown.
Kitty, can you play chess? Now, don t smile, my dear, I m asking it
seriously. Because, when we were playing just now, you watched just as
if you understood it: and when I said Check! you purred! Well, it
_was_ a nice check, Kitty, and really I might have won, if it hadn t
been for that nasty Knight, that came wiggling down among my pieces.
Kitty, dear, let s pretend And here I wish I could tell you half the
things Alice used to say, beginning with her favourite phrase Let s
pretend. She had had quite a long argument with her sister only the
day before all because Alice had begun with Let s pretend we re kings
and queens; and her sister, who liked being very exact, had argued
that they couldn t, because there were only two of them, and Alice had
been reduced at last to say, Well, _you_ can be one of them then, and
_I ll_ be all the rest. And once she had really frightened her old
nurse by shouting suddenly in her ear, Nurse! Do let s pretend that
I m a hungry hyaena, and you re a bone.
But this is taking us away from Alice s speech to the kitten. Let s
pretend that you re the Red Queen, Kitty! Do you know, I think if you
sat up and folded your arms, you d look exactly like her. Now do try,
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