'I should see the garden far better,' said Alice to herself, 'if I could

get to the top of that hill: and here's a path that leads straight to

it--at least, no, it doesn't do that--' (after going a few yards along

the path, and turning several sharp corners), 'but I suppose it will

at last. But how curiously it twists! It's more like a corkscrew than a

path! Well, THIS turn goes to the hill, I suppose--no, it doesn't! This

goes straight back to the house! Well then, I'll try it the other way.'

And so she did: wandering up and down, and trying turn after turn, but

always coming back to the house, do what she would. Indeed, once, when

she turned a corner rather more quickly than usual, she ran against it

before she could stop herself.

'It's no use talking about it,' Alice said, looking up at the house and

pretending it was arguing with her. 'I'm NOT going in again yet. I know

I should have to get through the Looking-glass again--back into the old

room--and there'd be an end of all my adventures!'

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.

For a few minutes all went on well, and she was just saying, 'I really

SHALL do it this time--' when the path gave a sudden twist and shook

itself (as she described it afterwards), and the next moment she found

herself actually walking in at the door.

'Oh, it's too bad!' she cried. 'I never saw such a house for getting in

the way! Never!'

However, there was the hill full in sight, so there was nothing to be

done but start again. This time she came upon a large flower-bed, with a

border of daisies, and a willow-tree growing in the middle.

'O Tiger-lily,' said Alice, addressing herself to one that was waving

gracefully about in the wind, 'I WISH you could talk!'

'We CAN talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody worth talking

to.'

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute: it quite

seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the Tiger-lily only went

on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid voice--almost in a whisper.

'And can ALL the flowers talk?'

'As well as YOU can,' said the Tiger-lily. 'And a great deal louder.'

'It isn't manners for us to begin, you know,' said the Rose, 'and I

really was wondering when you'd speak! Said I to myself, "Her face has

got SOME sense in it, though it's not a clever one!" Still, you're the

right colour, and that goes a long way.'

'I don't care about the colour,' the Tiger-lily remarked. 'If only her

petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right.'

Alice didn't like being criticised, so she began asking questions.

'Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out here, with nobody

to take care of you?'

'There's the tree in the middle,' said the Rose: 'what else is it good

for?'

'But what could it do, if any danger came?' Alice asked.

'It says "Bough-wough!"' cried a Daisy: 'that's why its branches are

called boughs!'

'Didn't you know THAT?' cried another Daisy, and here they all began

shouting together, till the air seemed quite full of little shrill

voices. 'Silence, every one of you!' cried the Tiger-lily, waving itself

passionately from side to side, and trembling with excitement. 'They

know I can't get at them!' it panted, bending its quivering head towards

Alice, 'or they wouldn't dare to do it!'

'Never mind!' Alice said in a soothing tone, and stooping down to the

daisies, who were just beginning again, she whispered, 'If you don't

hold your tongues, I'll pick you!'

There was silence in a moment, and several of the pink daisies turned

white.

'That's right!' said the Tiger-lily. 'The daisies are worst of all. When

one speaks, they all begin together, and it's enough to make one wither

to hear the way they go on!'

'How is it you can all talk so nicely?' Alice said, hoping to get it

into a better temper by a compliment. 'I've been in many gardens before,

but none of the flowers could talk.'

'Put your hand down, and feel the ground,' said the Tiger-lily. 'Then

you'll know why.'

Alice did so. 'It's very hard,' she said, 'but I don't see what that has

to do with it.'

'In most gardens,' the Tiger-lily said, 'they make the beds too soft--so

that the flowers are always asleep.'

This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know it.

'I never thought of that before!' she said.

'It's MY opinion that you never think AT ALL,' the Rose said in a rather

severe tone.

'I never saw anybody that looked stupider,' a Violet said, so suddenly,

that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn't spoken before.

'Hold YOUR tongue!' cried the Tiger-lily. 'As if YOU ever saw anybody!

You keep your head under the leaves, and snore away there, till you know

no more what's going on in the world, than if you were a bud!'

'Are there any more people in the garden besides me?' Alice said, not

choosing to notice the Rose's last remark.

'There's one other flower in the garden that can move about like you,'

said the Rose. 'I wonder how you do it--' ('You're always wondering,'

said the Tiger-lily), 'but she's more bushy than you are.'

'Is she like me?' Alice asked eagerly, for the thought crossed her mind,

'There's another little girl in the garden, somewhere!'

'Well, she has the same awkward shape as you,' the Rose said, 'but she's

redder--and her petals are shorter, I think.'

'Her petals are done up close, almost like a dahlia,' the Tiger-lily

interrupted: 'not tumbled about anyhow, like yours.'

'But that's not YOUR fault,' the Rose added kindly: 'you're beginning

to fade, you know--and then one can't help one's petals getting a little

untidy.'

Alice didn't like this idea at all: so, to change the subject, she asked

'Does she ever come out here?'

'I daresay you'll see her soon,' said the Rose. 'She's one of the thorny

kind.'

'Where does she wear the thorns?' Alice asked with some curiosity.

'Why all round her head, of course,' the Rose replied. 'I was wondering

YOU hadn't got some too. I thought it was the regular rule.'

'She's coming!' cried the Larkspur. 'I hear her footstep, thump, thump,

thump, along the gravel-walk!'

Alice looked round eagerly, and found that it was the Red Queen. 'She's

grown a good deal!' was her first remark. She had indeed: when Alice

first found her in the ashes, she had been only three inches high--and

here she was, half a head taller than Alice herself!

'It's the fresh air that does it,' said the Rose: 'wonderfully fine air

it is, out here.'

'I think I'll go and meet her,' said Alice, for, though the flowers were

interesting enough, she felt that it would be far grander to have a talk

with a real Queen.

'You can't possibly do that,' said the Rose: '_I_ should advise you to

walk the other way.'

This sounded nonsense to Alice, so she said nothing, but set off at

once towards the Red Queen. To her surprise, she lost sight of her in a

moment, and found herself walking in at the front-door again.

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.

It succeeded beautifully. She had not been walking a minute before she

found herself face to face with the Red Queen, and full in sight of the

hill she had been so long aiming at.

'Where do you come from?' said the Red Queen. 'And where are you going?

Look up, speak nicely, and don't twiddle your fingers all the time.'

Alice attended to all these directions, and explained, as well as she

could, that she had lost her way.

'I don't know what you mean by YOUR way,' said the Queen: 'all the ways

about here belong to ME--but why did you come out here at all?' she

added in a kinder tone. 'Curtsey while you're thinking what to say, it

saves time.'

Alice wondered a little at this, but she was too much in awe of the

Queen to disbelieve it. 'I'll try it when I go home,' she thought to

herself, 'the next time I'm a little late for dinner.'

'It's time for you to answer now,' the Queen said, looking at her watch:

'open your mouth a LITTLE wider when you speak, and always say "your

Majesty."'

'I only wanted to see what the garden was like, your Majesty--'

'That's right,' said the Queen, patting her on the head, which Alice

didn't like at all, 'though, when you say "garden,"--I'VE seen gardens,

compared with which this would be a wilderness.'

Alice didn't dare to argue the point, but went on: '--and I thought I'd

try and find my way to the top of that hill--'

'When you say "hill,"' the Queen interrupted, '_I_ could show you hills,

in comparison with which you'd call that a valley.'

'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--'

The Red Queen shook her head, 'You may call it "nonsense" if you like,'

she said, 'but I'VE heard nonsense, compared with which that would be as

sensible as a dictionary!'

Alice curtseyed again, as she was afraid from the Queen's tone that she

was a LITTLE offended: and they walked on in silence till they got to

the top of the little hill.

For some minutes Alice stood without speaking, looking out in all

directions over the country--and a most curious country it was. There

were a number of tiny little brooks running straight across it from side

to side, and the ground between was divided up into squares by a number

of little green hedges, that reached from brook to brook.

'I declare it's marked out just like a large chessboard!' Alice said at

last. 'There ought to be some men moving about somewhere--and so there

are!' She added in a tone of delight, and her heart began to beat quick

with excitement as she went on. 'It's a great huge game of chess that's

being played--all over the world--if this IS the world at all, you know.

Oh, what fun it is! How I WISH I was one of them! I wouldn't mind being

a Pawn, if only I might join--though of course I should LIKE to be a

Queen, best.'

She glanced rather shyly at the real Queen as she said this, but her

companion only smiled pleasantly, and said, 'That's easily managed. You

can be the White Queen's Pawn, if you like, as Lily's too young to

play; and you're in the Second Square to begin with: when you get to

the Eighth Square you'll be a Queen--' Just at this moment, somehow or

other, they began to run.

Alice never could quite make out, in thinking it over afterwards, how it

was that they began: all she remembers is, that they were running hand

in hand, and the Queen went so fast that it was all she could do to keep

up with her: and still the Queen kept crying 'Faster! Faster!' but Alice

felt she COULD NOT go faster, though she had not breath left to say so.

The most curious part of the thing was, that the trees and the other

things round them never changed their places at all: however fast they

went, they never seemed to pass anything. 'I wonder if all the things

move along with us?' thought poor puzzled Alice. And the Queen seemed to

guess her thoughts, for she cried, 'Faster! Don't try to talk!'

Not that Alice had any idea of doing THAT. She felt as if she would

never be able to talk again, she was getting so much out of breath: and

still the Queen cried 'Faster! Faster!' and dragged her along. 'Are we

nearly there?' Alice managed to pant out at last.

'Nearly there!' the Queen repeated. 'Why, we passed it ten minutes ago!

Faster!' And they ran on for a time in silence, with the wind whistling

in Alice's ears, and almost blowing her hair off her head, she fancied.

'Now! Now!' cried the Queen. 'Faster! Faster!' And they went so fast

that at last they seemed to skim through the air, hardly touching the

ground with their feet, till suddenly, just as Alice was getting quite

exhausted, they stopped, and she found herself sitting on the ground,

breathless and giddy.

The Queen propped her up against a tree, and said kindly, 'You may rest

a little now.'

Alice looked round her in great surprise. 'Why, I do believe we've been

under this tree the whole time! Everything's just as it was!'

'Of course it is,' said the Queen, 'what would you have it?'

'Well, in OUR country,' said Alice, still panting a little, 'you'd