"Where are we?" asked Alice.

"Going on," answered the fairy.

Alice, not liking the reply, said,--

"I want to go home."

"Good-bye, then!" answered the fairy.

Alice looked round. A wide, hilly country lay all about them. She could
not even tell from what quarter they had come.

"I must go with you, I see," she said.

Before they reached the bottom, they were walking over the loveliest
meadow-grass. A little stream went cantering down beside them, without
channel or bank, sometimes running between the blades, sometimes
sweeping the grass all one way under it. And it made a great babbling
for such a little stream and such a smooth course.

Gradually the slope grew gentler, and the stream flowed more softly and
spread out wider. At length they came to a wood of long, straight
poplars, growing out of the water, for the stream ran into the wood,
and there stretched out into a lake. Alice thought they could go no
farther; but Peaseblossom led her straight on, and they walked through.

It was now dark; but everything under the water gave out a pale, quiet
light. There were deep pools here and there, but there was no mud, or
frogs, or water-lizards, or eels. All the bottom was pure, lovely
grass, brilliantly green. Down the banks of the pools she saw, all
under water, primroses and violets and pimpernels. Any flower she
wished to see she had only to look for, and she was sure to find it.
When a pool came in their way, the fairy swam, and Alice swam by her;
and when they got out they were quite dry, though the water was as
delightfully wet as water should be. Besides the trees, tall, splendid
lilies grew out of it, and hollyhocks and irises and sword-plants, and
many other long-stemmed flowers. From every leaf and petal of these,
from every branch-tip and tendril, dropped bright water. It gathered
slowly at each point, but the points were so many that there was a
constant musical plashing of diamond rain upon the still surface of the
lake. As they went on, the moon rose and threw a pale mist of light
over the whole, and the diamond drops turned to half-liquid pearls, and
round every tree-top was a halo of moonlight, and the water went to
sleep, and the flowers began to dream.

"Look," said the fairy; "those lilies are just dreaming themselves into
a child's sleep. I can see them smiling. This is the place out of which
go the things that appear to children every night."

"Is this dreamland, then?" asked Alice.