ings like that, but both the girls seemed
to be thinking of something else. They kept looking at each other and
trying not to laugh, so Oswald saw they had got some silly secret and he
said--

'Oh, all right! I don't care about telling you. I only thought you'd
like to be in it. It's going to be a really big thing, with policemen in
it, and perhaps a judge.'

'In what?' H. O. said; 'the perambulator?'

Daisy choked and then tried to drink, and spluttered and got purple, and
had to be thumped on the back. But Oswald was not appeased. When Alice
said, 'Do go on, Oswald. I'm sure we all like it very much,' he said--

'Oh, no, thank you,' very politely. 'As it happens,' he went on, 'I'd
just as soon go through with this thing without having any girls in it.'

'In the perambulator?' said H. O. again.

'It's a man's job,' Oswald went on, without taking any notice of H. O.

'Do you really think so,' said Alice, 'when there's a baby in it?'

'But there isn't,' said H. O., 'if you mean in the perambulator.'

'Blow you and your perambulator,' said Oswald, with gloomy forbearance.

Alice kicked Oswald under the table and said--

'Don't be waxy, Oswald. Really and truly Daisy and I HAVE got a secret,
only it's Dora's secret, and she wants to tell you herself. If it was
mine or Daisy's we'd tell you this minute, wouldn't we, Mouse?'

'This very second,' said the White Mouse.

And Oswald consented to take their apologies.

Then the pudding came in, and no more was said except asking for things
to be passed--sugar and water, and bread and things.

Then when the pudding was all gone, Alice said--

'Come on.'

And we came on. We did not want to be disagreeable, though really we
were keen on being detectives and sifting that perambulator to the
very dregs. But boys have to try to take an interest in their sisters'
secrets, however silly. This is part of being a good brother.

Alice led us across the field where the sheep once fell into the brook,
and across the brook by the plank. At the other end of the next field
there was a sort of wooden house on wheels, that the shepherd sleeps in
at the time of year when lambs are being born, so that he can see that
they are not stolen by gipsies before the owners have counted them.

To this hut Alice now led her kind brothers and Daisy's kind brother.
'Dora is inside,' she said, 'with the Secret. We were afraid to have it
in the house in case it made a noise.'

The next mome