ing gently away over the sea.
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The Mer-lady taking the little girl to a party
"That was very nice," said Susan. "I should like to know where she lives."
"Her Majesty lives where a good monarch always should, in the midst of her people—the city of coral," said the mermaid in a reproving voice.
"We will go there now, if you think you can swim so far."
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"I am not in the least tired, thank you," said Susan.
So bidding the mer-children and their Governess good-by, and patting the pugfish, who by this time was quite friendly, they slipped into the water on the other side of the island.
Down the hillside blue with anemones they swam. They passed an orchard of sea-apples and saw a poet sitting reading under a tree, and a garden where a mer-lady was picking gooseberries; until in the distance they saw the gleaming towers of the city, its domes and palaces and its waving turrets, twisted like tulip stems, full of windows with boxes of flowers and hanging gardens.
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"No stairs, you know," remarked the mermaid. "You just swim in and out as you like. It saves a deal of trouble."
Susan thought it would be lovely if it would only rain very hard for days and days, and weeks and weeks, and months and months, and years and years! It might fill up all the country with water except the hilltops, and then it would be so delightful to go to church on Sunday in the family shell coach, drawn by fat fish—only if it rained as hard as that, all the dates would be washed off the almanac and no one would know when it was Sunday.
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In a garden near the royal palace they saw a mer-lady drying her hair, and three girls with a puss-fish. They saw the bank of ocean guarded by spearfish, and met a mer-lady taking a little mer-girl to a party, and a Duchess driving her own twenty-four-in-hand with a footman perched on the back of her dog-shell.
They swam aside to let a parcels-post shell go by, with a large, high-swimming, black sea-horse.
They went all over the city, and saw great galleries of pictures, and the national theater, and a large concert-hall with notes painted outside, that played themselves when you looked at them.
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Suddenly it grew dark, and the mermaid hastily dragged Susan under an overhanging roof.
"That is a large giant fish going by. We must keep very still, so he will not hear us; they are stupid and dull-sighted, but they do eat us when they can."
He passed overhead without seeing them.
By this time it was really dark, and the starfish were being lighted by lamplighters.
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Lighting the starfish
"I shall have to leave you now," said the mermaid. "Father will be wanting his dinner, and I am the only one at home; he so hates coming back to an empty house. Good-by; come again one day. So pleased to meet you, little Susan." And she turned on her tail and disappeared through a gaping door.
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The three girls and the puss-fish
"How does she think I am to get home?" thought Susan. Just in front of her she saw two lights with black rims, that reminded her of Grandmama's tortoise-shell spectacles.
"I wonder where Grandmama is," she said as she rubbed her eyes.
"Here I am," said Grandmama, smiling wisely at Susan through her tortoise-shell spectacles.
But she seemed a great way off as if miles of blue sea separated them. Susan began to feel very queer.
"Give me your hand Grandmother," she called, and her voice sounded like the whisper in the heart of a shell.
"How can I? You are in Oceana," Grandmother laughed back.
"Do I have to stay? Will I grow into a mer-child?" Susan cried, and her tears made the water rise so, that she was almost drowned.
Then Grandmother bent her face to the ocean and said some magical words. Instantly the enchanted ring rose and anchored right where Susan tiptoed in her tears. She scrambled up and seated herself upon the pearl, holding fast to the rim as the ring shot up.
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There was a great jolt and when Susan opened her eyes Grandmother was putting the ring on her finger.
"Grandmother, the ring obeyed you," Susan gasped.
"Were you ever in Oceana?"
And Grandmother said: "Little girl, when we are very old or very young, we spend most of our time in Wonderland."
