nibbling

After a while she remembered that she still held the pieces of mushroom in her hands, and she set to work very carefully, nibbling first at one and then at the other, and growing sometimes taller and sometimes shorter, until she had succeeded in bringing herself down to her usual height.

“Whoever lives there,” thought Alice, “it’ll never do to come upon them _this_ size: why, I should frighten them out of their wits!” So she began nibbling at the righthand bit again, and did not venture to go near the house till she had brought herself down to nine inches high.

Then she went to work nibbling at the mushroom (she had kept a piece of it in her pocket) till she was about a foot high: then she walked down the little passage: and _then_—she found herself at last in the beautiful garden, among the bright flower-beds and the cool fountains.

Perhaps some of these days I may be entrapped, like poor Peppino and may be very glad to have some little nibbling mouse to gnaw the meshes of my net, and so help me out of prison.”