both.
"You must not _think_ of being surprised. Nobody is ever surprised
here."

"No one is ever surprised here," repeated the right-hand cat. "This is
the Castle of Whiteness, you know. You are sure you have nothing
coloured about you?" he added, anxiously.

Instinctively both the children put their hands up to their heads.

"Only our hair," they said.

"Mine's light-brown, you see," said Hugh.

"And mine's bl----" Jeanne was saying, but the cats, both speaking
together this time, stopped her with a squeal of horror.

"Oh, oh, oh!" they said. "Where are your manners? You must never mention
such a word. Your hair, Mademoiselle, is _shadowy_. That is the proper
expression."

Jeanne was annoyed, and did not speak. Hugh felt himself bound to defend
her from the charge of bad manners.

"You needn't be so sharp," he said to the cats; "your eyes are as green
as they can be."

"Green doesn't count," said the right-hand cat, coolly.

"And how were we to know that?" said Hugh.

"I don't know," said the left-hand cat.

"Well, but can't you be sensible?" said Hugh, who didn't feel inclined
to give in to two cats.

"Perhaps we might be if we tried," said the right-hand cat. "But----"

A sudden sound interrupted him. It was as if some one had moved a piece
of furniture with squeaking castors.

"Madame's turning her wheel," said the left-hand cat. "Now's the time."

Both cats got down from their chairs, and each, standing on their hind
legs, proceeded to open his side of the door between the chairs--or
"doors" I should almost say, for it was a double-hinged one, opening in
the middle, and the funny thing about it was that one side opened
outwards, and the other inwards, so that at first, unless you were
standing just exactly in the middle, you did not see very clearly into
the inside.

CHAPTER VIII.

"THE BROWN BULL OF NORROWA."

"Delicate, strong, and white,
Hurrah for the magic thread!
The warp and the woof come right."
CHILD WORLD.

They were not to be surprised! Both the children remembered that, and
yet it was a little difficult to avoid being so.

At first all they saw was just another white room, a small one, and with
a curious pointed window in one corner. But when the doors were fully
opened there was more to be seen. In the first place, at the opposite
corner, was a second window exactly like the other, and in front of this