said the Tiger-lily. ‘Then you’ll know why.’

Alice did so. ‘It’s very hard,’ she said, ‘but I don’t see what that has to do with it.’

‘In most gardens,’ the Tiger-lily said, ‘they make the beds too soft — so that the flowers are always asleep.’

This sounded a very good reason, and Alice was quite pleased to know it. ‘I never thought of that before!’ she said.

‘It’s my opinion that you never think at all,’ the Rose said in a rather severe tone.

‘I never saw anybody that looked stupider,’ a Violet said, so suddenly, that Alice quite jumped; for it hadn’t spoken before.