There had been no queen that I knew of at our house. There might
have been one in the kitchen: but I didn't think so, or the
servants would have mentioned it.

'Any fairies?'

None that were visible.

'We had an idea among us, I think,' said Alice, with a melancholy
smile, 'we four, that Miss Grimmer would prove to be the wicked
fairy, and would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick,
and give the child a bad gift. Was there anything of that sort?
Answer, William.'

I said that ma had said afterwards (and so she had), that Great-
uncle Chopper's gift was a shabby one; but she hadn't said a bad
one. She had called it shabby, electrotyped, second-hand, and
below his income.

'It must be the grown-up people who have changed all this,' said
Alice. 'WE couldn't have changed it, if we had been so inclined,
and we never should have been. Or perhaps Miss Grimmer IS a wicked
fairy after all, and won't act up to it because the grown-up people
have persuaded her not to. Either way, they would make us
ridiculous if we told them what we expected.'

'Tyrants!' muttered the pirate-colonel.

'Nay, my Redforth,' said Alice, 'say not so. Call not names, my