it is, and I want to laugh; but it doesn't do to say so—for it only makes the others crosser than they were before. I wonder why that is?
Alice said Noël ought to be poet laureate, and she actually went out in the cold and got some laurel leaves—the spotted kind—out of the garden, and Dora made a crown and we put it on him. He was quite pleased; but the leaves made a mess, and Eliza said, "Don't." I believe that's a word grown-ups use more than any other. Then suddenly Alice thought of that old idea of hers for finding treasure, and she said—
"Do let's try the divining-rod."
So Oswald said, "Fair priestess, we do greatly desire to find gold beneath our land, therefore we pray thee practise with the divining-rod, and tell us where we can find it."
"Do ye desire to fashion of it helms and hauberks?" said Alice.
"Yes," said Noël; "and chains and ouches."
"I bet you don't know what an 'ouch' is," said Dicky.
"Yes I do, so there!" said Noel. "It's a carcanet. I looked it out in the dicker, now then!"
