Tom, Dot and Talking Mouse | Page 5

you are so early?" inquired Tom anxiously, for he knew that Anne's new home was many miles away.
"I have been here all night," she made answer.
"Anne, the cottage is still there, and the bit of furniture in it; go there, Anne--go now."
So Anne went after all to the cottage, which had been so long prepared for her, but it was not with Tom. He stayed at the mill with little Dot. And every night, when the child lay sleeping, the brown mouse crept out to bear the miller company. It was about this time that Tom thought the mouse began to talk to him as it had talked with the flowers in the garden the night he had found Dot.
"Miller," said the mouse, "is it not small things which make one happy?"
"Some things may content one, but it takes great ones to make one happy," said he.
"Contentment is happiness," said the mouse.
Now while the mouse was speaking, the candle, which was, as we have said, in the neck of a bottle instead of a candlestick, went out, and dropped right to the bottom of the bottle. There was a tiny spark seen for some time through the green glass, and by its light the miller saw many strange things, and the mouse was mixed up with them all.
The first thing he saw was a misty little ladder, made apparently of the cobwebs which festooned the mill. The ladder reached from the table right up through the floor and through the next floor, and from thence right up through the roof. A star was seen gleaming on its top. Up this strange ladder the little mouse ran, and the miller saw it by the light of the tiny spark, which somehow shot out upward rays which lit the ladder from top to bottom. When the mouse reached the top a tiny creature floated down from the star and presented it with a gift. This the mouse brought down and laid on the table before the miller. At first he thought it was sparks from the candle, but as he looked closer he found glittering words were formed by them; but they were in a language he could not read.
[Illustration: Mouse at cobweb ladder]
"What is the language?" he asked the mouse.
"The language of the eyes," answered the mouse.
"Read it to me," said the miller.
And the mouse read: "Tom, I am sorry--I am lonely; my husband and parents are dead. Tom, have you forgotten the old days?"
"It must be Anne's eyes which say this," cried the miller. "Yes, I might have read it all along."
Then the filmy ladder disappeared, and in the green light rose the little garden where the spring flowers were growing now. Within the arbour where Tom had gone to sleep one night sat Anne, her hands engaged in knitting, her eyes looking far away.
"Mouse, what is she thinking?" asked the miller. "You seem to know everything."
"Her eyes are talking," said the mouse.
"And what do they say?"
"They say, 'The miller only pities me; he no longer loves me.'"
"Ah, the eyes are wrong," cried Tom. "I will go to her and tell her so."
"Not yet," said the mouse. "Wait."
And then among the flowers there appeared a little child, and the child spoke low to the flowers.
"Listen," said the mouse.
"Oh, flowers, I have no father," murmured the child.
"Stop," cried the miller, "I must go."
And as he said this the light went quite out, and in the dim starlight which shone through the window he saw the mouse nibbling a crust of bread near his elbow. But for this little rustling sound, and Dot's breathing, all was silent. Yet there were voices in the miller's heart which made themselves heard well enough. One was the voice of Hope, the other the voice of Love.
So next day, when the sun was setting, Tom put on his best clothes, and, taking Dot by the hand, walked towards Brooks's cottage. When they reached it, Anne's little child stood in the gateway.
"Little one," said Tom, stooping and kissing the child, "is mother in the garden?"
The child pointed to the arbor.
"Stay together, children," said the miller; and then he entered the arbor.
* * * * * *
"What did I tell you?" said the mouse. The miller was in the old room at the mill for the last night.
"It matters little what you told me," said the miller--"you taught me so much."
Now from this time the mouse spoke no more to Tom, though he often saw the little brown creature. It is only to the lonely and sorrowful that mice and trees and clouds and wind talk much. And the miller was happy, for had not Anne consented to marry him, and was not the wedding-day no farther distant now than to-morrow?
Anne visited the mill with her husband a