[Illustration: Mouse at mouse-hole]
Tom slept on a heap of flour bags, for you see he had tucked Dot up snugly in his bed; but he slept soundly and well, for it is not so much the kind of bed we lie on, as the thoughts we lie down with, that give us pleasant sleep, and of all thoughts the best is that of having done some good and unselfish action in the day.
Dot proved uncommonly useful next morning. Tiny creature though she was, she was quite learned in domestic affairs. She lit the fire and tidied up the room before Tom was even awake. Indeed, when he did wake, it was to see her perched on his chair peeping into the cupboard to find the breakfast service. Tom's breakfast service was not extensive. It consisted of a huge cup and saucer a good deal chipped, two plates and a jam pot, this last article doing duty as a sugar-basin.
Dot was evidently well used to make-shifts, for she even invented a new one. Upon the mantelshelf was a curious old vase with a griffin's head surrounding it. It was shaped like a jug, so Dot took it down and washed it, saying to herself, "This will make a fine milk-jug."
"A fine milk-jug?" yawned the miller from his flour-bag couch. "Ah, to be sure! children want milk to drink." And with this he threw on his clothes, and hastily washed himself in a water-butt which stood near the mill steps. Then he called to Dot. "Come, little one, bring your milk-jug; we will go to the farm for milk for your breakfast."
"But we want to fetch the milk in a can," objected Dot.
Tom scratched his head in a bewildered way for a moment, then a happy thought struck him. "My beer-can will do, won't it?" he asked.
"Yes," answered Dot seriously, "only first it must be scrubbed."
So Tom scrubbed the can obediently, and when it shone sufficiently the two started off to a neighbouring farm to buy the milk.
On the way from the farm a strange thing happened. Tom and Dot were trudging merrily along a little lane, when they perceived a woman crouching under a hedge, holding in her arms a bundle wrapped in a shawl. The woman might have escaped notice, perhaps, had not a cry proceeded from the bundle. Tom had of late heard so many cries in his heart, that his ear readily lent itself to one from outside. He came up to the woman, therefore, at once and said, "You have a little one wrapped in that, haven't you? Is it hungry? If it is, here is some milk."
At first the woman did not raise her head. It was hidden in the shawl which covered the infant, so the miller repeated his question. Then the woman looked up, and the eyes which met Tom's were those of Anne Grey. She knew Tom at once, but it was with no smile of pleasure that she greeted him. Her words, too, when they came, were hard and cold. She only said, "So, Tom Lecky, you see what I have come to; rejoice in it!"
"Does the little one want food?" Tom asked again, without noticing in any way the words or the tone of the woman.
"And if it does?" said Anne, with a bitter little laugh.
"Why, if it does, I'm ready to give it some," said Tom, passing his coat-sleeve before his eyes for a moment. Then removing it suddenly he smiled into the woman's face—an April sort of smile, which scarcely knows whether to cloud over or to beam out with full warmth—and said, "And if you want anything I can give, it is yours for the taking."
The woman burst into tears, and the child, which was scarcely more than a baby, cried to bear her company. It was then that little Dot came forward and took the shawled bundle in her own baby arms, and commenced to feed it from the milk-can.
"How is it 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.
