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 bone." 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 House.

How would you like THAT ?" "Now, if you'll only attend, Kitty, and not talk so much, I'll tell you all my ideas about Looking-glass House.