And all the while the cat sat and stared at her, and seemed to grow positively bigger with staring so much, though when the Queen held out a piece of the goose to it, it merely sniffed contemptuously so that the Queen felt quite humiliated. "Your cat doesn’t seem to be very sociable," she said to the old woman. And the old woman answered, "Why should he be?" and took up a large twig broom to sweep the hearth with. That done, she leant upon it and regarded the Queen malevolently. "Aren’t you ever going to finish?" she said. The Queen answered, "Well, I was rather hungry, you see; but I’ve finished now. There’s no great hurry, is there?" "I want _my_ dinner," the old woman said, with such an emphasis on the "_my_" that the Queen was quite amused. "Why, the goose is there; at least, there’s some of it left." "But _I_ don’t like goose," the old woman said. Her manner was growing more and more peculiar. "Any one would think you were going to eat _me_," the Queen said; and the cat licked its jaws. "So I am," the old woman said, and her eyes gleamed. But the Queen said, "Nonsense!" "But it’s not nonsense," the old woman said; and the cat began to grow visibly. "Well, but you didn’t say anything about it before," the Queen said. "I only agreed to herd your geese." "But you won’t be able to," the old woman said. The Queen said, "Why not?" "Because they’re wild ones." The cat was growing larger and larger, till the Queen grew positively afraid. "Well, at any rate, I’ll have a try," she said. And the old woman answered, "You may as well save yourself the trouble." But the Queen insisted, and so they went outside, the old woman carrying her broom, for all the world like a crossing-sweeper. The great cat rubbed against her skirt and licked its jaws. It was about the size of a lion now. They came to the back of the house, and there the pen was—a cage covered completely over, and filled with a multitude of geese. The old woman undid the door and threw it wide, and immediately, with a mighty rustle of wings filling the air, the geese swept out of the pen away into the sky. The old woman chuckled, and the cat crouched itself down as if preparing to spring, lashing its sides with its long tail. But the Queen only smiled, and started off straight into the air, faster even than the geese had gone. The old woman gave a shriek, and the cat a horrible yell, and then the Queen saw the one mounted upon her broom, and the other without any sort of steed at all, come flying after her. Then ensued a terrific race. The Queen put up one hand to hold her crown on, and the other to shield her eyes, and then flew as fast as she could, with her hair streaming out upon the wind.