Alices Adventures Under Ground | Page 4

CARPET, with ALICE'S LOVE
oh dear! what nonsense I am talking!"
Just at this moment, her head struck against the roof of the hall: in fact,
she was now rather more than nine feet high, and she at once took up
the little golden key, and hurried off to the garden door.
Poor Alice! it was as much as she could do, lying down on one side, to
look through into the garden with one eye, but to get through was more
hopeless than ever: she sat down and cried again.
"You ought to be ashamed of yourself," said Alice, "a great girl like
you," (she might well say this,) "to cry in this way! Stop this instant, I
tell you!" But she cried on all the same, shedding gallons of tears, until
there was a large pool, about four inches deep, all round her, and
reaching half way across the hall. After a time, she heard a little
pattering of feet in the distance, and dried her eyes to see what was
coming. It was the white rabbit coming back again, splendidly dressed,
with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand, and a nosegay in the other.
Alice was ready to ask help of any one, she felt so desperate, and as the
rabbit passed her, she said, in a low, timid voice, "If you please, Sir--"
the rabbit started violently, looked up once into the roof of the hall,
from which the voice seemed to come, and then dropped the nosegay
and the white kid gloves, and skurried away into the darkness, as hard

as it could go.
[Illustration]
Alice took up the nosegay and gloves, and found the nosegay so
delicious that she kept smelling at it all the time she went on talking to
herself--"dear, dear! how queer everything is today! and yesterday
everything happened just as usual: I wonder if I was changed in the
night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up this morning? I think
I remember feeling rather different. But if I'm not the same, who in the
world am I? Ah, that's the great puzzle!" And she began thinking over
all the children she knew of the same age as herself, to see if she could
have been changed for any of them.
"I'm sure I'm not Gertrude," she said, "for her hair goes in such long
ringlets, and mine doesn't go in ringlets at all--and I'm sure I ca'n't be
Florence, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a
very little! Besides, she's she, and I'm I, and--oh dear! how puzzling it
all is! I'll try if I know all the things I used to know. Let me see: four
times five is twelve, and four times six is thirteen, and four times seven
is fourteen--oh dear! I shall never get to twenty at this rate! But the
Multiplication Table don't signify--let's try Geography. London is the
capital of France, and Rome is the capital of Yorkshire, and Paris--oh
dear! dear! that's all wrong, I'm certain! I must have been changed for
Florence! I'll try and say "How doth the little,"" and she crossed her
hands on her lap, and began, but her voice sounded hoarse and strange,
and the words did not sound the same as they used to do:
"How doth the little crocodile Improve its shining tail, And pour the
waters of the Nile On every golden scale!
"How cheerfully it seems to grin! How neatly spreads its claws! And
welcomes little fishes in With gently-smiling jaws!"
"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Alice, and her eyes
filled with tears as she thought "I must be Florence after all, and I shall
have to go and live in that poky little house, and have next to no toys to
play with, and oh! ever so many lessons to learn! No! I've made up my

mind about it: if I'm Florence, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use their
putting their heads down and saying 'come up, dear!' I shall only look
up and say 'who am I then? answer me that first, and then, if I like
being that person, I'll come up: if not, I'll stay down here till I'm
somebody else--but, oh dear!" cried Alice with a sudden burst of tears,
"I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so tired of being all
alone here!"
As she said this, she looked down at her hands, and was surprised to
find she had put on one of the rabbit's little gloves while she was
talking. "How can I have done that?" thought she, "I must be growing
small again." She got up and went to the table