ound they were all locked. She walked back and
forth and tried to think how she was to get out. At last she came to a
stand made all of glass. On it was a ti-ny key of gold, and Al-ice's
first thought was that this might be a key to one of the doors of the
hall, but when she had tried the key in each lock, she found the locks
were too large or the key was too small--it did not fit one of them. But
when she went round the hall once more she came to a low cur-tain which
she had not seen at first, and when she drew this back she found a small
door, not much more than a foot high; she tried the key in the lock, and
to her great joy it fit-ted!

[Illustration]

Al-ice found that the door led to a hall the size of a rat hole; she
knelt down and looked through it in-to a gar-den of gay flow-ers. How
she longed to get out of that dark hall and near those bright blooms;
but she could not so much as get her head through the door; "and if my
head would go through," thought Al-ice, "it would be of no use, for the
rest of me would still be too large to go through. Oh, how I wish I
could shut up small! I think I could if I knew how to start."

There seemed to be no use to wait by the small door, so she went back to
the stand with the hope that she might find a key to one of the large
doors, or may-be a book of rules that would teach her to grow small.
This time she found a small bot-tle on it ("which I am sure was not here
just now," said Al-ice), and tied round the neck of the bot-tle was a
tag with the words "Drink me" printed on it.

It was all right to say "Drink me," but Al-ice was too wise to do that
in haste: "No, I'll look first," she said, "and see if it's marked
'poi-son' or not," for she had been taught if you drink much from a
bot-tle marked 'poi-son,' it is sure to make you sick. This had no such
mark on it, so she dared to taste it, and as she found it nice (it had,
in fact, a taste of pie, ice-cream, roast fowl, and hot toast), she soon
drank it off.

"How strange I feel," said Al-ice. "I am sure I am not so large as I
was!"

And so it was; she was now not quite a foot high, and her face light-ed
up at the thought that she was now the right size to go through the
small door and get out to that love-ly gar-den.

[Illustration]

Poor Al-ice! When she reached the door she found that she had left the
key on the stand, and when she went back for it, she found she could by
no means reach it. She could see it throug