bland and fragile, and with such a consanguineous handle, she felt a
sudden certainty that the Teacup would always be kind and helpful; so
she suggested timidly,

"Then we shan't need the onions?"

"Oh, dear, yes," answered the Teacup, in a soft, wrinkled voice. "We'd
never in Zeelup be able to get the pieces of the dimple to Schlorge
without first anaesthetizing the Snimmy."

Sara jumpled: that awful word again! Her head reeled (exactly as heads
do in grown-up stories) as she realized how many things there were in
this strange place that she didn't know. Who was Schlorge, for
example? And how was she to get anything to anybody without getting
up? And "anaesthetize"?

She hated to disturb the Teacup; she was knitting so placidly, and
murmuring over and over to herself, "Never in Zeelup." She looked up
into the tree; the Plynck, too, had fallen asleep, worn out by the
unwonted excitement of the morning; and her lovely Echo also slept in
the amber pool. Sara now noticed that, though the Plynck was
rose-colored, her Echo was cerulean.

The great, soft, curled plumes of the Plynck and her Echo rippled as
they breathed and slept, rather like water or fire in a little wind;
and with every ripple they seemed to shake out a faint perfume that
drifted across Sara's face in waves. And they both looked so lovely
that she could not think of disturbing them, either. So she looked
about to see if there might be any one else who could enlighten her.