There had been no queen that I knew of at our house. There might have been one in the kitchen; but I didn't think so, or the servants would have mentioned it.
"Any fairies?"
None that were visible.
"We had an idea among us, I think," said Alice, with a melancholy smile, "we four, that Miss Grimmer would prove to be the wicked fairy, and would come in at the christening with her crutch-stick, and give the child a bad gift? Was there anything of that sort? Answer, William."
 | ||
| We had an idea among us ... that Miss Grimmer would proveto be the wicked fairy. | ||
I said that Ma had said afterwards (and so she had), that great-uncle Chopper's gift was a shabby one; but she hadn't said a bad one. She had called it shabby, electrotyped, second-hand, and below his income.
"It must be the grown-up people who have changed all this," said Alice. "We couldn't have changed it, if we had been so inclined, and we never should have been. Or perhaps Miss Grimmer is a wicked fairy, after all, and won't act up to it, because the grown-up people have persuaded her not to. Either way, they would make us ridiculous if we told them what we expected."
"Tyrants!" muttered the Pirate-Colonel.
"Nay, my Redforth," said Alice, "say not so. Call not names, my Redforth, or they will apply to Pa."
"Let 'em," said the Colonel. "I don't care. Who's he?"