One thing was for certain, that the white kitten had nothing to do with it;- it was the black kitten's fault entirely. The white kitten- Snowdrop- was getting washed up by the maid Wendy. So you see that it couldn't have had any hand in the mischief. The blame for the broken mirror whent to the black kitten, Kitty. Elisa sat on the floor wondering how she would explain this to her father. Her father had told Elisa time and time again to never go near a mirror. Elisa quickly cleaned up the mess and hoped her father wouldn't notice. "Oh you wicked little thing," cried Elisa, catching the kitten; gently tapping it on the head to make it understand that it was in disgrace. "Father will be angry with me because of you!"

Elisa had always wondered why rules were so important. She wanted to know why she needed to follow them. Elisa often thought of a world with no rules, animals would speak and live in houses just as humans would. In Elisa's world what it would be would be what it isn't, and what it wouldn't be would be what it is. Then Elisa thought of doors, trap doors. Doors that led nowhere, and doors that went to different rooms. 'What if a mirror could be a door.' Elisa climbed atop the mantle in her father's office. She stared at her reflection and it stared back. He placed her hand on the mirror. The glass bended and her reflection disappeared. Elisa's hand went through the glass. "Curiouser and curiouser." Elisa stepped through the mirror. The room she was in was pitch black. Elise stepped forward and fell into what seemed like a deep well. Either the well was very deep, or she fell very slowly, for she had plenty of time as she went down to look about her, and to wonder what would happen next. First, she tried to look down and make out what she was coming to, but it was too dark to see anything: then, she looked at the sides of the well, and noticed that they were filled with cupboards and book-shelves: here and there were maps and pictures hung on pegs. She took a jar down off one of the shelves as she passed: it was labelled "Orange Marmalade", but to her great disappointment it was empty: she did not like to drop the jar, for fear of killing somebody underneath, so managed to put it into one of the cupbards as she fell past it.

"Well!" thought Elisa to herself, "after such a fall as this, I shall think nothing of tumbling down stairs! How brave they'll all think me at home! Why, I wouldn't say anything about it, even if I fell off the top of the house!" (which was most likely true.)

Down, down, down. Would the fall never come to and end? "I wonder how many miles I've fallen by this time?" said she aloud, "I must be getting somewhere near the centre of the earth. Let me see: that would be four thousand miles down, I think–" (for you see Elisa had learnt several things of this sort in her lessons in the schoolroom, and though this was not a very good opportunity of showing off her knowledge, as there was no one to hear her, still it was good practice to say it over,) "yes, that's the right distance, but then what Longitude or Latitude-line shall I be in?" (Elisa had no idea what Longitude was, or Latitude either, but she thought they were nice grand words to say.)

"I wonder if I shall fall right through the earth! How funny it'll be to come out among the people that walk with their heads downwards! But I shall have to ask them what the name of the country is, you know, Please, Ma'am, is this New Zealand or Australia?"–and she tried to curtsey as she spoke, (fancy curtseying as you're falling through the air! do you think you could manage it?) "and what an ignorant little girl she'll think me for asking! No, it'll never do to ask: perhaps I shall see it written up somewhere."

Down, down, down: there was nothing else to do, so Elisa soon began talking again. "Snowdrop and Kitty will miss me very much tonight, I should think! I hope they'll remember her saucer of milk at tea-time! Oh, dear Snowdrop, I wish I had you here! There are no mice in the air, I'm afraid, but you might catch a bat, and that's very like a mouse, you know, my dear. But do cats eat bats, I wonder?" And here Elisa began to get rather sleepy, and kept on saying to herself, in a dreamy sort of way "do cats eat bats? do cats eat bats?" and sometimes, "do bats eat cats?" for, as she couldn't answer either question, it didn't much matter which way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Snowdrop and Kitty, and was saying to her very earnestly, "Now, Snowdrop and Kitty, my dears, tell me the truth. Did you ever eat a bat?" when suddenly, bump! bump! down she came upon a heap of sticks and shavings, and the fall was over.