'O Tiger-lily,' said Alice, addressing herself to one that was
waving gracefully about in the wind, 'I WISH you could talk!'

'We CAN talk,' said the Tiger-lily: 'when there's anybody
worth talking to.'

Alice was so astonished that she could not speak for a minute:
it quite seemed to take her breath away. At length, as the
Tiger-lily only went on waving about, she spoke again, in a timid
voice--almost in a whisper. 'And can ALL the flowers talk?'

'As well as YOU can,' said the Tiger-lily. 'And a great deal
louder.'

'It isn't manners for us to begin, you know,' said the Rose,
'and I really was wondering when you'd speak! Said I to myself,
"Her face has got SOME sense in it, though it's not a clever
one!" Still, you're the right colour, and that goes a long way.'

'I don't care about the colour,' the Tiger-lily remarked. 'If
only her petals curled up a little more, she'd be all right.'

Alice didn't like being criticised, so she began asking
questions. 'Aren't you sometimes frightened at being planted out
here, with nobody to take care of you?'

'There's the tree in the middle,' said the Rose: 'what else is
it good for?'