"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.