Cross Purposes and The Shadows | Page 2

her by the hand and led her towards the foot
of the bed. Long before they reached it, however, Alice saw that the
fairy was a tall, slender lady, and that she herself was quite her own
size. What she had taken for tufts on the counterpane were really
bushes of furze, and broom, and heather, on the side of a slope.
"Where are we?" asked Alice.
"Going on," answered the fairy.
Alice, not liking the reply, said,--

"I want to go home."
"Good-bye, then!" answered the fairy.
Alice looked round. A wide, hilly country lay all about them. She could
not even tell from what quarter they had come.
"I must go with you, I see," she said.
Before they reached the bottom, they were walking over the loveliest
meadow-grass. A little stream went cantering down beside them,
without channel or bank, sometimes running between the blades,
sometimes sweeping the grass all one way under it. And it made a great
babbling for such a little stream and such a smooth course.
Gradually the slope grew gentler, and the stream flowed more softly
and spread out wider. At length they came to a wood of long, straight
poplars, growing out of the water, for the stream ran into the wood, and
there stretched out into a lake. Alice thought they could go no farther;
but Peaseblossom led her straight on, and they walked through.
It was now dark; but everything under the water gave out a pale, quiet
light. There were deep pools here and there, but there was no mud, or
frogs, or water-lizards, or eels. All the bottom was pure, lovely grass,
brilliantly green. Down the banks of the pools she saw, all under water,
primroses and violets and pimpernels. Any flower she wished to see
she had only to look for, and she was sure to find it. When a pool came
in their way, the fairy swam, and Alice swam by her; and when they
got out they were quite dry, though the water was as delightfully wet as
water should be. Besides the trees, tall, splendid lilies grew out of it,
and hollyhocks and irises and sword-plants, and many other
long-stemmed flowers. From every leaf and petal of these, from every
branch-tip and tendril, dropped bright water. It gathered slowly at each
point, but the points were so many that there was a constant musical
plashing of diamond rain upon the still surface of the lake. As they
went on, the moon rose and threw a pale mist of light over the whole,
and the diamond drops turned to half-liquid pearls, and round every
tree-top was a halo of moonlight, and the water went to sleep, and the

flowers began to dream.
"Look," said the fairy; "those lilies are just dreaming themselves into a
child's sleep. I can see them smiling. This is the place out of which go
the things that appear to children every night."
"Is this dreamland, then?" asked Alice.
"If you like," answered the fairy.
"How far am I from home?"
"The farther you go, the nearer home you are."
Then the fairy lady gathered a bundle of poppies and gave it to Alice.
The next deep pool that they came to, she told her to throw it in. Alice
did so, and following it, laid her head upon it. That moment she began
to sink. Down and down she went, till at last she felt herself lying on
the long, thick grass at the bottom of the pool, with the poppies under
her head and the clear water high over it. Up through it she saw the
moon, whose bright face looked sleepy too, disturbed only by the little
ripples of the rain from the tall flowers on the edges of the pool.
She fell fast asleep, and all night dreamed about home.

CHAPTER III.
Richard--which is name enough for a fairy story--was the son of a
widow in Alice's village. He was so poor that he did not find himself
generally welcome; so he hardly went anywhere, but read books at
home, and waited upon his mother. His manners, therefore, were shy,
and sufficiently awkward to give an unfavourable impression to those
who looked at outsides. Alice would have despised him; but he never
came near enough for that.
Now Richard had been saving up his few pence in order to buy an

umbrella for his mother; for the winter would come, and the one she
had was almost torn to ribands. One bright summer evening, when he
thought umbrellas must be cheap, he was walking across the
market-place to buy one: there, in the middle of it, stood an
odd-looking little man, actually selling umbrellas. Here was a chance
for him! When he drew nearer, he found that the