“What a curious feeling!” said Alice.  “I must be shutting up like a telescope.”

And so it was, indeed; she was now only ten inches high, and her face brightened up at the thought that she was now the right size for going through the little door into that lovely garden....  But, alas for poor Alice, when she got to the door she found she had forgotten the little golden key, and when she went back to the table for it she found she could not possibly reach it.

Soon her eye fell on a little glass box that was lying under the table.  She opened it, and found in it a very small cake, on which the words EAT ME were beautifully marked in currants.

She very soon finished off the cake.

“Curiouser and curiouser!” cried Alice (she was so much surprised that for the moment she quite forgot how to speak good English).  “Now I’m opening out like the largest telescope that ever was.  Good-by feet!” (for when she looked down at her feet they seemed to be almost out of sight, they were getting so far off).  “Oh, my poor little feet!  I wonder who will put on your shoes and stockings for you now, dears?”

Just at this moment her head struck against the roof of the hall; in fact, she was now 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 began to cry again, shedding gallons of tears, until there was a large pool all round her, about four inches deep, and reaching half down the hall.

After a time she heard a little pattering of feet in the distance, and she hastily dried her eyes to see what was coming.  It was the White Rabbit returning, splendidly dressed, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand and a large fan in the other.  He came trotting along in a great hurry, muttering to himself as he came, “Oh, the Duchess! the Duchess!  Or, won’t she be savage if I’ve kept her waiting!”

Alice felt so desperate that she was ready to ask help of anyone; so, when the Rabbit came near her, she began, in a timid voice:  “If you please, sir——­”

The Rabbit started violently, dropped the gloves and the fan, and scurried away into the darkness as hard as he could go.

Alice took up the fan and gloves, and, as the hall was very hot, she kept fanning herself all the time she went on talking.

“Dear, dear!  How queer everything is to-day!  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—­oh, dear, I shall never get to twenty at that rate!” But presently on looking down at her hands, she was surprised to see that she had put on one of the rabbit’s little white kid gloves while she was talking.