phrase `Let's pretend.'  She had had quite a long argument with her
sister only the say 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, there's a dear!'  And Alice got the Red Queen off
the table, and set it up before the kitten as a model for it to
imitate: however, the thing didn't succeed, principally, Alice said,
because the kitten wouldn't fold its arms properly. So, to punish it,
she held it up to the Looking-glass, that it might see how sulky it
was -- `and if you're not good directly,' she added, `I'll put you
through into Looking-glass House.  How would you like THAT?'

  `Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell
you all my ideas about Looking-glass House.  First, there's the room
you can see through the glass -- that's just the same as our drawing
room, only the things go the other way.  I can see all of it when I
get upon a chair -- all but the bit behind the fireplace.  Oh! I do
so wish I could see THAT bit!  I want so much to know whether they've
a fire in the winter: you never CAN tell, you know, unless our fire
smokes, and then smoke comes up in that room too -- but that may be
only pretence, just to make it look as if they had a fire.  Well
then, the books are something like our books, only the words go the
wrong way; I know that, because I've held up one of our books to the
glass, and then they hold up one in the other room.

  `How would you like to live in Looking-glass House, Kitty?  I
wonder if they'd give you milk in there?  Perhaps Looking-glass milk
isn't good to drink -- But oh, Kitty! now we come to the passage.
You can just see a little PEEP of the passage in Looking-glass House,
if you leave the door of our drawing-room wide open: and it's very
like our passage as far as you can see, only you know it may be quite
different on beyond.  Oh, Kitty!  how nice it would be if we could
only get through into Looking- glass House!  I'm sure it's got, oh!
such beautiful things in it!

Let's pretend there's a way of getting through into it, somehow,
Kitty.  Let's pretend the glass has got all soft like gauze, so that
we can get through.  Why, it's turning into a sort of mist now, I
declare!  It'll be easy enough to get through -- ' She was up on the
chimney-piece while she said this, though she hardly knew how she had
got there.  And certainly the glass WAS beginning to melt away, just
like a bright silvery mist.

  In another moment Alice was through the glass, and had jumped
lightly down into the Looking-glass room.  The very first thing she
did was to look whether there was a fire in the fireplace, and she
was quite pleased to find that there was a real one, blazing away as
brightly as the one she had left behind.  `So I shall be as warm here
as I was in the old room,' thought Alice: `warmer, in fact, because
there'll be no one here to scold me away from the fire.  Oh, what fun
it'll be, when they see me through the glass in here, and can't get
at me!'

  Then she began looking about, and noticed that what could be seen
from the old room was quite common and uninteresting, but that all
the rest was a different as possible.  For instance, the pictures on
the wall next the fire seemed to be all alive, and the very clock on
the chimney-piece (you know you can only see the back of it in the
Looking-glass) had got the face of a little old man, and grinned at
her.

  `They don't keep this room so tidy as the other,' Alice thought to
herself, as she noticed several of the chessmen down in the hearth
among the cinders: but in another moment, with a little `Oh!' of
surprise, she was down on her hands and knees watching them.  The
chessmen were walking about, two and two!

  `Here are the Red King and the Red Queen,' Alice said (in a
whisper, for fear of frightening them), `and there are the White King
and the White Queen sitting on the edge of the shovel -- and here are
two castles walking arm in arm -- I don't think they can hear me,'
she went on, as she put her head closer down, `and I'm nearly sure
they can't see me.  I feel somehow as if I were invisible -- '

  Here something began squeaking on the table behind Alice, and made
her turn her head just in time to see one of the White Pawns roll
over and begin kicking: she watched it with great curiosity to see
what would happen next.

  `It is the voice of my child!' the White Queen cried out as she
rushed past the King, so violently that she knocked him over among
the cinders.  `My precious Lily!  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.  He had a right to be a LITTLE annoyed with
the Queen, for he was covered with ashes from head to foot.

  Alice was very anxious to be of use, and, as the poor little Lily
was nearly screaming herself into a fit, she hastily picked up the
Queen and set her on the table by the side of her noisy little