"Why, she of course," said the Do-do, as it point-ed to Al-ice with one long claw; and the whole par-ty at once crowd-ed round her as they called out, "A prize, a prize!" Al-ice did not know what to do, but she pulled from her pock-et a box of lit-tle cakes (by a strange, good luck they did not get wet while she was in the pool) and hand-ed them round as priz-es. There was one a-piece all round. "But she must have a prize, you know," said the Mouse. "Of course," the Do-do said. "What else have you got?" he went on as he turned to Al-ice. "A thim-ble," said Al-ice looking quite sad. "Hand it here," said the Do-do. Then they all crowd-ed round her once more, while the Do-do hand-ed the thim-ble back to Al-ice and said, "We beg that you accept this fine thim-ble;" and when it had made this short speech they all cheered. Al-ice thought the whole thing quite fool-ish, but they all looked so grave that she did not dare to laugh, and as she could not think what to say she bowed and took the thim-ble, while she looked as staid as she could. [Illustration] The next thing was to eat the cakes: this caused some noise, as the large birds said they could not taste theirs, and the small ones choked and had to be pat-ted on the back. It was o-ver at last and they sat down in a ring and begged the Mouse to tell them a tale. "You said you would tell us why you hate cats and dogs," said Al-ice. "Mine is a long and a sad tale," said the Mouse, as it turned to Al-ice with a sigh. "It is a long tail, I'm sure," said Al-ice, look-ing down at the Mouse's tail; "but why do you call it sad?" "I shall not tell you," said the Mouse, as it got up and walked off. "Please come back and tell us your tale," called Al-ice; and all joined in, "Yes, please do!" but the Mouse shook its head and walked on and was soon out of sight. "I wish I had our Di-nah here, I know I do!" said Al-ice. "She'd soon fetch it back." "And who is Di-nah, if I may dare to ask such a thing?" said one of the birds. Al-ice was glad to talk of her pet. "Di-nah's our cat; and she's such a fine one to catch mice, you can't think. And oh, I wish you could see her chase a bird! Why she'll eat a bird as soon as look at it!" This speech caused a great stir in the par-ty. Some of the birds rushed off at once; one old jay wrapped it-self up with care and said, "I must get home; the night air doesn't suit my throat!" and a wren called out to her brood, "come, my dears! It's high time you were all in bed." Soon they all moved off and Al-ice was left a-lone. "I wish I hadn't told them of Di-nah," she said to her-self. "No one seems to like her down here, and I'm sure she's the best cat in the world! Oh, my dear Di-nah! Shall I ev-er see you an-y more?" And here poor Al-ice burst in-to tears, for she felt ver-y sad and lone-ly. In a short time she heard the pat-ter of feet, and she looked up with the hope that the Mouse had changed its mind and come back to tell his "long and sad tale."