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- THROUGH THE LOOKING-GLASS
- By Lewis Carroll
- CHAPTER I. Looking-Glass house
- One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do with
- it:--it was the black kitten's fault entirely. For the white kitten had
- been having its face washed by the old cat for the last quarter of
- an hour (and bearing it pretty well, considering); so you see that it
- COULDN'T have had any hand in the mischief.
- The way Dinah washed her children's faces was this: first she held the
- poor thing down by its ear with one paw, and then with the other paw she
- rubbed its face all over, the wrong way, beginning at the nose: and
- just now, as I said, she was hard at work on the white kitten, which was
- lying quite still and trying to purr--no doubt feeling that it was all
- meant for its good.
- But the black kitten had been finished with earlier in the afternoon,
- and so, while Alice was sitting curled up in a corner of the great
- arm-chair, half talking to herself and half asleep, the kitten had been
- having a grand game of romps with the ball of worsted Alice had been
- trying to wind up, and had been rolling it up and down till it had all
- come undone again; and there it was, spread over the hearth-rug, all
- knots and tangles, with the kitten running after its own tail in the
- middle.
- 'Oh, you wicked little thing!' cried Alice, catching up the kitten, and
- giving it a little kiss to make it understand that it was in disgrace.
- '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--and then she
- scrambled back into the arm-chair, taking the kitten and the worsted
- with her, and began winding up the ball again. But she didn't get on
- very fast, as she was talking all the time, sometimes to the kitten, and
- sometimes to herself. 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.
- 'Do you know what to-morrow is, Kitty?' Alice began. 'You'd have guessed
- if you'd been up in the window with me--only Dinah was making you tidy,
- so you couldn't. I was watching the boys getting in sticks for the
- bonfire--and it wants plenty of sticks, Kitty! Only it
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