ction to which he pointed. 'I shan't be long. You'll wait and wave
your handkerchief when I get to that turn in the road? I think it'll
encourage me, you see.'

'Of course I'll wait,' said Alice: 'and thank you very much for coming
so far--and for the song--I liked it very much.'

'I hope so,' the Knight said doubtfully: 'but you didn't cry so much as
I thought you would.'

So they shook hands, and then the Knight rode slowly away into the
forest. 'It won't take long to see him OFF, I expect,' Alice said to
herself, as she stood watching him. 'There he goes! Right on his head as
usual! However, he gets on again pretty easily--that comes of having so
many things hung round the horse--' So she went on talking to herself,
as she watched the horse walking leisurely along the road, and the
Knight tumbling off, first on one side and then on the other. After
the fourth or fifth tumble he reached the turn, and then she waved her
handkerchief to him, and waited till he was out of sight.

'I hope it encouraged him,' she said, as she turned to run down the
hill: 'and now for the last brook, and to be a Queen! How grand it
sounds!' A very few steps brought her to the edge of the brook. 'The
Eighth Square at last!' she cried as she bounded across,

* * * * * * *

* * * * * *

* * * * * * *

and threw herself down to rest on a lawn as soft as moss, with little
flower-beds dotted about it here and there. 'Oh, how glad I am to get
here! And what IS this on my head?' she exclaimed in a tone of dismay,
as she put her hands up to something very heavy, and fitted tight all
round her head.

'But how CAN it have got there without my knowing it?' she said to
herself, as she lifted it off, and set it on her lap to make out what it
could possibly be.

It was a golden crown.

CHAPTER IX. Queen Alice

'Well, this IS grand!' said Alice. 'I never expected I should be a Queen
so soon--and I'll tell you what it is, your majesty,' she went on in
a severe tone (she was always rather fond of scolding herself), 'it'll
never do for you to be lolling about on the grass like that! Queens have
to be dignified, you know!'

So she got up and walked about--rather stiffly just at first, as she was
afraid that the crown might come off: but she comforted herself with the
thought that there was nobody to see her, 'and if I really am a Queen,'
she said as she sat down again, 'I shall b