  We examine the interaction of a weak probe with $N$ atoms in a lambda-level
configuration under the conditions of electromagnetically induced transparency
(EIT). In contrast to previous works on EIT, we calculate the output state of
the resultant slowly propagating light field while taking into account the
effects of ground state dephasing and atomic noise for a more realistic model.
In particular, we propose two experiments using slow light with a nonclassical
probe field and show that two properties of the probe, entanglement and
squeezing, characterizing the quantum state of the probe field, can be
well-preserved throughout the passage.
