I shall only look up and say `` Who am I then ? Tell me that first , and then , if I like being that person , I 'll come up : if not , I 'll stay down here till I 'm somebody else '' -- but , oh dear ! ' cried Alice , with a sudden burst of tears , ' I do wish they WOULD put their heads down ! I am so VERY tired of being all alone here ! ' As she said this she looked down at her hands , and was surprised to see that she had put on one of the Rabbit 's little white kid gloves while she was talking . ` 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 avoid shrinking away altogether . ` That WAS a narrow escape ! ' said Alice , a good deal frightened at the sudden change , but very glad to find herself still in existence ; ` and now for the garden ! ' and she ran with all speed back to the little door : but , alas ! the little door was shut again , and the little golden key was lying on the glass table as before , ` and things are worse than ever , ' thought the poor child , ` for I never was so small as this before , never ! And I declare it 's too bad , that it is ! ' As she said these words her foot slipped , and in another moment , splash ! she was up to her chin in salt water . Her first idea was that she had somehow fallen into the sea , ` and in that case I can go back by railway , ' she said to herself . -LRB- Alice had been to the seaside once in her life , and had come to the general conclusion , that wherever you go to on the English coast you find a number of bathing machines in the sea , some children digging in the sand with wooden spades , then a row of lodging houses , and behind them a railway station . -RRB- However , she soon made out that she was in the pool of tears which she had wept when she was nine feet high . ' I wish I had n't cried so much ! '
said Alice , as she swam about , trying XXXXX find her way out . '
before by for if into than that till to with