certainly DID seem a little provoking ('almost as if it happened
on purpose,' she thought) that, though she managed to pick plenty
of beautiful rushes as the boat glided by, there was always a
more lovely one that she couldn't reach.

'The prettiest are always further!' she said at last, with a
sigh at the obstinacy of the rushes in growing so far off, as,
with flushed cheeks and dripping hair and hands, she scrambled
back into her place, and began to arrange her new-found treasures.

What mattered it to her just then that the rushes had begun to
fade, and to lose all their scent and beauty, from the very
moment that she picked them? Even real scented rushes, you know,
last only a very little while--and these, being dream-rushes,
melted away almost like snow, as they lay in heaps at her feet--
but Alice hardly noticed this, there were so many other curious
things to think about.

They hadn't gone much farther before the blade of one of the
oars got fast in the water and WOULDN'T come out again (so Alice
explained it afterwards), and the consequence was that the handle
of it caught her under the chin, and, in spite of a series of
little shrieks of 'Oh, oh, oh!' from poor Alice, it swept her
straight off the seat, and down among the heap of rushes.

However, she wasn't hurt, and was soon up again: the Sheep
went on with her knitting all the while, just as if nothing had
happened. 'That was a nice crab you caught!' she remarked, as
Alice got back into her place, very much relieved to find herself
still in the boat.