Alice in Wonderland | Page 3

I shall be a great deal too far off to take care of you; you must get on the best way you can; but I must be kind to them," thought Al-ice, "or they won't walk the way I want to go! Let me see: I'll give them a pair of new shoes each, Christ-mas."
She stopped to think how she would send them. "They must go by the mail," she thought; "and how fun-ny it'll seem to send shoes to one's own feet. How odd the ad-dress will look!
AL-ICE'S RIGHT FOOT, ESQ., Hearth-rug, Near the Fire. (With Al-ice's love.)
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Oh dear, there's no sense in all that."
Just then her head struck the roof of the hall; in fact she was now more than nine feet high, and she at once took up the small key and went back to the door.
Poor Al-ice! It was as much as she could do, when she lay down on one side, to look through to the gar-den with one eye: but to get through was not to be hoped for, so she sat down and had a good cry.
"Shame on you," said Al-ice, "a great big girl like you" (she might well say this) "to cry in this way! Stop at once, I tell you!" But she went on all the same, and shed tears till there was a large pool all round her, and which reached half way down the hall.
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At last she heard the sound of feet not far off, then she dried her eyes in great haste to see who it was. It was the White Rab-bit that had come back, dressed in fine clothes, with a pair of white kid gloves in one hand, and a large fan in the oth-er. He trot-ted on in great haste, and talked to him-self as he came, "Oh! the Duch-ess, the Duch-ess! Oh! won't she be in a fine rage if I've made her wait?"
Al-ice felt so bad and so in need of help from some one, that when the Rab-bit came near, she said in a low tim-id voice, "If you please, sir--" The Rab-bit started as if shot, dropped the white kid gloves and the fan and ran off in-to the dark as fast as his two hind feet could take him.
Al-ice took up the fan and gloves and as the hall was quite hot, she fanned her-self all the time she went on talk-ing. "Dear, dear! How queer all things are to-day! Could I have been changed in the night? Let me think: was I the same when I got up to-day? Seems to me I didn't feel quite the same. But if I'm not the same, then who in the world am I?" Then she thought of all the girls she knew that were of her age, to see if she could have been changed for one of them.
"I'm sure I'm not A-da," she said, "for her hair is in such long curls and mine doesn't curl at all; and I'm sure I can't be Ma-bel, for I know all sorts of things, and she, oh! she knows such a lit-tle! Then, she's she, and I'm I, and--oh dear, how strange 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 thir-teen, and four times sev-en is--oh dear! that is not right. I must have been changed for Ma-bel! I'll try if I know 'How doth the lit-tle--'" and she placed her hands on her lap, as if she were at school and tried to say it, but her voice was hoarse and strange and the words did not come the same as they used to do.
"I'm sure those are not the right words," said poor Al-ice, and her eyes filled with tears as she went on, "I must be Ma-bel af-ter all, and I shall have to go and live in that po-ky house and have next to no toys to play with, and oh! such hard things to learn. No, I've made up my mind; if I'm Ma-bel, I'll stay down here! It'll be no use for them to put their heads down and say, 'Come up, dear!' I shall look up and say, 'Who am I, then? Tell me that first, and then if I like it, I'll come up; if not, I'll stay down here till I'm some one else'--but, oh dear," cried Al-ice with a fresh burst of tears, "I do wish they would put their heads down! I am so tired of this place!"
As she said this she looked down at her hands and saw that she had put on one of the Rab-bit's white kid gloves while she was talk-ing. "How can I have done