er which
way she put it. She felt that she was dozing off, and had just
begun to dream that she was walking hand in hand with Dinah, and
saying to her very earnestly, "Now, Dinah, tell me the truth: did
you ever eat a bat?" when suddenly, thump! thump! down she came
upon a heap of dry leaves, and the fall was over.
Alice was not a bit hurt, and she jumped up on her feet in a
moment. She looked up, but it was all dark overhead; before her was
another long passage, and the White Rabbit was still in sight,
hurrying down it. There was not a moment to be lost; away went
Alice like the wind, and was just in time to hear it say, as it
turned a corner, "Oh my ears and whiskers, how late it's getting!"
She was close behind it when she turned the corner, but the Rabbit
was no longer to be seen; she found herself in a long, low hall,
which was lit up by a row of lamps hanging from the roof.
There were doors all round the hall, but they were all locked; and
when Alice had been all the way down one side and up the other,
trying every door, she walked sadly down the middle, wondering how
she was ever to get out again.
Suddenly she came upon a little three-legged table, all made of
solid glass; there was nothing on it except a tiny golden key, and
Alice's first thought was that it might belong to one of the doors
of the hall; but, alas! either the locks were too large or the key
was too small, but at any rate it would not open any of them.
However, the second time round she came upon a low curtain she had
not noticed before, and behind it was a little door about fifteen
inches high. She tried the little golden key in the lock, and to
her great delight it fitted!
Alice opened the door and found that it led into a small passage,
not much larger than a rat-hole. She knelt down and looked along
the passage into the loveliest garden you ever saw. How she longed
to get out of that dark hall, and wander about among those beds of
bright flowers and those cool fountains, but she could not even get
her head through the doorway! "And even if my head would go
through," thought poor Alice, "it would be of very little use
without my shoulders. Oh, how I wish I could shut up like a
telescope! I think I could, if I only knew how to begin." For, you
see, so many
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