d Alice thought the place would please her, perhaps,
and they might have some enjoyment. But she did nothing but grumble, and
out loud too, so that people looked at them, and a woman said, so that
they could hear, "Ah well, they'll be old themselves some day," which
made Alice very angry, for, as she said, they weren't doing anything.
When they showed her the chestnut avenue in Bushey Park, she said it was
so long and straight that it made her quite dull to look at it, and she
thought the deer (you know how pretty they are, really) looked thin and
miserable, as if they would be all the better for a good feed of
hog-wash, with plenty of meal in it. She said she knew they weren't
happy by the look in their eyes, which seemed to tell her that their
keepers beat them. It was the same with everything; she said she
remembered market-gardens in Hammersmith and Gunnersbury that had a
better show of flowers, and when they took her to the place where the
water is, under the trees, she burst out with its being rather hard to
tramp her off her legs to show her a common canal, with not so much as a
barge on it to liven it up a bit. She went on like that the whole day,
and Alice told me she was only too thankful to get home and get rid of
her. Wasn't it wretched for the girl?'

'It must have been, indeed. But what happened last Sunday?'

'That's the most extraordinary thing of all. I noticed that Alice was
rather queer in her manner this morning; she was a longer time washing
up the breakfast things, and she answered me quite sharply when I called
to her to ask when she would be ready to help me with the wash; and when
I went into the kitchen to see about something, I noticed that she was
going about her work in a sulky sort of way. So I asked her what was the
matter, and then it all came out. I could scarcely believe my own ears
when she mumbled out something about Mrs. Murry thinking she could do
very much better for herself; but I asked her one question after another
till I had it all out of her. It just shows one how foolish and
empty-headed these girls are. I told her she was no better than a
weather-cock. If you will believe me, that horrid old woman was quite
another person when Alice went to see her the other night. Why, I can't
think, but so she was. She told the girl how pretty she was; what a neat
figure she had; how well she walked; and how she'd known many a girl not
half so clever or well-looking earning her twenty-five