“How can I have done that?” she thought.  “I must be growing small again.”

She got up and went to the table to measure herself by it, and found that, as nearly as she could guess, she was now about two feet high, and was going on shrinking rapidly.  She soon found out that the cause of this was the fan she was holding, and she dropped it hastily, just in time to save herself from shrinking away altogether.  Now she hastened to the little door, but alas, it was shut again.  “I declare it’s too bad, that it is!” she said aloud, and just as she spoke her foot slipped, and in another moment, splash! she was up to her chin in salt water.  It was the pool of tears she had wept when she was nine feet high!

II.—­The Pool of Tears and the Animals’ Party

Just then she heard something splashing about in the pool a little way off, and she swam nearer to make out what it was.  At first she thought it must be a walrus or hippopotamus, but then she remembered how small she was now, and she soon made out that it was only a mouse that had slipped in like herself.

“Would it be of any use, now,” thought Alice, “to speak to this mouse?  Everything is so out-of-the-way down here that I should think very likely it can talk; at any rate, there’s no harm in trying.”  So she began, “O Mouse, do you know the way out of this pool?  I am very tired of swimming about here.  O Mouse.”  The Mouse looked at her rather inquisitively, and seemed to her to wink with one of its little eyes, but it said nothing.

“Perhaps it doesn’t understand English,” thought Alice; “I daresay it’s a French mouse, come over with William the Conqueror.”  So she began again, “ou est ma chatte?” which was the first sentence in her French lesson book.  The Mouse gave a sudden leap out of the water, and seemed to quiver all over with fright.  “Oh, I beg your pardon!” cried Alice hastily, afraid that she had hurt the poor animal’s feeling.  “I quite forgot you don’t like cats.”

“Not like cats!” cried the Mouse, in a shrill, passionate voice.  “Would you like cats if you were me?” The Mouse was swimming away from her as hard as it could go.  So she called softly after it.

“Mouse dear!  Do come back again, and we won’t talk about cats, or dogs either, if you don’t like them!” When the Mouse heard this, it turned round and swam slowly back to her; its face was quite pale (with passion, Alice thought), and it said in a low, trembling voice, “Let us get to the shore, and I’ll tell you my history, and you’ll understand why it is I hate cats and dogs.”

It was high time to go, for the pool was getting quite crowded with the birds and animals that had fallen into it; there were a duck and a dodo, a lory and an eaglet, and other curious creatures.  Alice led the way, and the whole party swam to the shore.