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-ch

