Name: Alice Through the Looking Glass Audiobook by Lewis Caroll, Chapter 1, Full Cast & Unabridged
Uploaded: 2023-07-20T11:34:19.000Z
Duration: 19 min 37 s
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Past perfect

One thing was certain, that the WHITE kitten had had nothing to do with

Adverbs of degree

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

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

'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

'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 got so cold, and

it snowed so, they had to leave off. Never mind, Kitty, we'll go and

see the bonfire to-morrow.' Here Alice wound two or three turns of the

worsted round the kitten's neck, just to see how it would look: this led

to a scramble, in which the ball rolled down upon the floor, and yards

'Do you know, I was so angry, Kitty,' Alice went on as soon as they were

comfortably settled again, 'when I saw all the mischief you had been

doing, I was very nearly opening the window, and putting you out into

the snow! And you'd have deserved it, you little mischievous darling!

What have you got to say for yourself? Now don't interrupt me!' she

went on, holding up one finger. 'I'm going to tell you all your faults.

Number one: you squeaked twice while Dinah was washing your face this

morning. Now you can't deny it, Kitty: I heard you! What's that you

say?' (pretending that the kitten was speaking.) 'Her paw went into your

eye? Well, that's YOUR fault, for keeping your eyes open--if you'd

shut them tight up, it wouldn't have happened. Now don't make any more

excuses, but listen! Number two: you pulled Snowdrop away by the tail

just as I had put down the saucer of milk before her! What, you were

thirsty, were you? How do you know she wasn't thirsty too? Now for

number three: you unwound every bit of the worsted while I wasn't

'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

'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

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

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Alice Through the Looking Glass Audiobook by Lewis Caroll, Chapter 1, Full Cast & Unabridged

struggle

pretend

anxious

suppose