"Through the Looking Glass," Vocabulary from the novel

"Really, Dinah ought to have taught you better manners! You ought, Dinah, you know you ought!" she added, looking reproachfully at the old cat, and speaking in as cross a voice as she could manage

Kitty sat very demurely on her knee, pretending to watch the progress of the winding, and now and then putting out one paw and gently touching the ball, as if it would be glad to help if it might.

My imperial kitten!" and she began scrambling wildly up the side of the fender--Imperial fiddlestick!" said the King, rubbing his nose, which had been hurt by the fall.

She said afterwards that she had never seen in all her life such a face as the King made, when he found himself held in the air by an invisible hand, and being dusted: he was far too much astonished to cry out, but his eyes and his mouth went on getting larger and larger, and rounder and rounder, till her hand shook so with laughing that she nearly let him drop upon the floor.

"And has thou slain the jabberwock?
Come to my arms, my beamish boy!
O frabjous day! Callooh! Callay!"
He chortled in his joy.

She was getting a little giddy with so much floating in the air, and was rather glad to find herself walking again in the natural way.

So, resolutely turning her back upon the house she set out once more down the path, determined to keep straight on till she got to the hill.

A little provoked, she drew back and, after looking everywhere for the Queen (whom she spied out at last, a long way off), she thought she would try the plan, this time, of walking in the opposite direction.

"No, I shouldn't," said Alice, surprised into contradicting her at last: "a hill can't be a valley, you know, that would be nonsense--"

"I--I didn't know I had to make one--just then," Alice faltered out.

They can't be bees--nobody ever saw bees a mile off you know--" and for some minutes she stood silent, watching one of them that was bustling about among the flowers, poking its proboscis into them, "just as if it was a regular bee," thought Alice.

The consequence of this was that it tickled her ear very much, and quite took off her thoughts from the unhappiness of the poor little creature.

"What sort of insects do you rejoice in, where you come from?" the Gnat inquired.

After this, Alice was silent for a minute or two, pondering.

"And yet I don't know," the Gnat went on in a careless tone: "only think how convenient it would be if you could manage to go home without it.

Alice stood looking after it, almost ready to cry with vexation at having lost her dear little fellow-traveller so suddenly

'O Oysters, come and walk with us!'
The Walrus did beseech.

Now if you're ready, Oysters dear,
We can begin to feed.'
'But not on us!' the Oysters cried,
Turning a little blue.
'After such kindness, that would be
A dismal thing to do!'

"I shouldn't!" Alice exclaimed indignantly. "Besides, if I'm only a sort of thing in his dream, what are you, I should like to know?"

"And all about a rattle!" said Alice, still hoping to make them a little ashamed of fighting for such a trifle.

"When do you expect to do it?" Alice asked, feeling very much inclined to laugh.

"I've got it!" she cried in a triumphant tone.

"Things flow about so here!" she said at last in a plaintive tone, after she had spent a minute or so in vainly pursuing a large bright thing, that looked sometimes like a doll and sometimes like a work-box, and was always in the shelf next above the one she was looking at.

"The prettiest are always further!" she said at last, with a sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as, with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled back into her place, and began to arrange her new-found treasures.

"I know it's very ignorant of me," Alice replied in so humble a tone that Humpty Dumpty relented.

"When I use a word," Humpty Dumpty said in a rather scornful tone, "it means just what I choose it to mean--neither more nor less.

"Now you talk like a reasonable child," said Humpty Dumpty, looking very much pleased. "I meant by "impenetrability' that we've had enough of that subject, and it would be just as well if you'd mention what you meant to do next, as I suppose you don't intend to stop here all the rest of your life."

"And "the wabe' is the grass plot round a sundial, I suppose?" said Alice, surprised at her own ingenuity.

"I only wish I had such eyes," the King remarked in a fretful tone.

All this was lost on Alice, who was still looking intently along the road, shading her eyes with one hand.

On which the Messenger, to Alice's great amusement, opened a bag that hung round his neck, and handed a sandwich to the King, who devoured it greedily.

Alice was glad to see that it revived him a good deal.

"I do my best," the Messenger said in a sullen tone. "I'm sure nobody walks much faster than I do!"

They were in such a cloud of dust, that at first Alice could not make out which was which: but she soon managed to distinguish the Unicorn by his horn.

At this moment the Unicorn sauntered by them, with his hands in his pockets.

Alice had seated herself on the bank of a little brook, with the great dish on her knees and was sawing away diligently with the knife.

At this moment her thoughts were interrupted by a loud shouting of "Ahoy! Ahoy! Check!" and a Knight, dressed in crimson armour, came galloping down upon her, brandishing a great club.

Alice looked from one to the other in some bewilderment.

Years afterwards she could bring the whole scene back again, as if it had been only yesterday--the mild blue eyes and kindly smile of the Knight--the setting sun gleaming through his hair, and shining on his armour in a blaze of light that quite dazzled her--the horse quietly moving about, with the reins hanging loose on his neck, cropping the grass at her feet--and the black shadows of the forest behind

Yet twopence-halfpenny is all,
They give me for my toil.'

"I never expected I should be a Queen so soon--and I'll tell you what it is, your Majesty," she went on in a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself), "it'll never do to loll about on the grass like that!

"I can do Addition," she said, "if you give me time--but I can't do Subtraction under any circumstances!"

"What am I to do?" exclaimed Alice, looking about in great perplexity, as first one round head, and then the other, rolled down from her shoulder, and lay like a heavy lump in her lap.

The snoring got more distinct every minute, and sounded more like a tune: at last she could even make out words, and she listened so eagerly that when the two great heads suddenly vanished from her lap, she hardly missed them.

"Certainly not," the Red Queen said, very decidedly; "it isn't etiquette to cut anyone you've been introduced to.

"What impertinence!" said the Pudding. "I wonder how you'd like it, if I were to cut a slice out of you, you creature!"

"And as for you," she went on, turning fiercely upon the Red Queen, whom she considered as the cause of all the mischief--but the Queen was no longer at her side--she had suddenly dwindled down to the size of a little doll, and was now on the table, merrily running round and round after her own shawl, which was trailing behind her.

"And what did Dinah turn to, I wonder?" she prattled on, as she settled comfortably down, with one elbow on the rug, and her chin in her hand, to watch the kittens.