"looking anxiously about her" meaning
This sentence is from "alice in wonderland." I brought the original prhase below

`A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
looking anxiously about her. `Oh, do let me help to undo it!'

what i am curious about is that the meaning of 'looking anxiously about her'
Here are my guesses
1. Alice anxiously looked at herself.
2. Alice is always ready to make herself look anxious.
3. Alice seemed anxious.

Do i have the answer among my guesses or is there any other answer?

Question

"looking anxiously about her" meaning
This sentence is from "alice in wonderland." I brought the original prhase below

`A knot!' said Alice, always ready to make herself useful, and
looking anxiously about her.  `Oh, do let me help to undo it!'

what i am curious about is that the meaning of 'looking anxiously about her'
Here are my guesses
1. Alice anxiously looked at herself.
2. Alice is always ready to make herself look anxious.
3. Alice seemed anxious.

Do i have the answer among my guesses or is there any other answer?

Answer

Thanks for your answer, Nowell :)

Answer

The use of ‘looking anxiously about her’ isn’t exactly any of your answers. Though 1 is close.

The use of 'about' here is to describe Alice looking around the area anxiously. It’s her looking at the things around her anxiously, including the people surrounding her. Other examples of this are: “She looked about the room”, this means she’s looking around the room.

Hope this helps.