after the
birds! Why, she'll eat a little bird as soon as look at it!"

This answer caused a remarkable sensation among the party: some
of the birds hurried off at once; one old magpie began wrapping
itself up very carefully, remarking "I really must be getting
home: the night air does not suit my throat," and a canary called
out in a trembling voice to its children "come away from her, my
dears, she's no fit company for you!" On various pretexts, they
all moved off, and Alice was soon left alone.

[Illustration]

She sat for some while sorrowful and silent, but she was not long
before she recovered her spirits, and began talking to herself
again as usual: "I do wish some of them had stayed a little
longer! and I was getting to be such friends with them--really
the Lory and I were almost like sisters! and so was that dear
little Eaglet! And then the Duck and the Dodo! How nicely the
Duck sang to us as we came along through the water: and if the
Dodo hadn't known the way to that nice little cottage, I don't
know when we should have got dry again--" and there is no knowing
how long she might have prattled on in this way, if she had not
suddenly caught the sound of pattering feet.

It was the white rabbit, trotting slowly back again, and looking
anxiously about it as it went, as if it had lost something, and she
heard it muttering to itself "the Marchioness! the Marchioness! oh
my dear paws! oh my fur and whiskers! She'll have me executed, as
sure as ferrets are ferrets! Where can I have dropped them, I
wonder?" Alice guessed in a moment that it was looking for the
nosegay and the pair of white kid gloves, and she began hunting for
them, but they were now nowhere to be seen--everything seemed to
have changed since her swim in the pool, and her walk along the
river-bank with its fringe of rushes and forget-me-nots, and the
glass table and the little door had vanished.

Soon the rabbit noticed Alice, as she stood looking curiously
about her, and at once said in a quick angry tone, "why, Mary
Ann! what are you doing out here? Go home this moment, and look
on my dressing-table for my gloves and nosegay, and fetch them
here, as quick as you can run, do you hear?" and Alice was so
much frightened that she ran off at once, without saying a word,
in the direction which the rabbit had pointed out.

She soon found herself in front of a neat little house, on the
door of which was a bright brass plate with the name W. RABBIT,