When Tom reached the garden gate (it was a tall wicket-gate through which you could get a peep at the garden) he undid the padlock, and in the half-light saw a tall holly-hock stretching itself across the entrance as if barring the way. "The garden is ours—mine and the rest of the flowers," it seemed to say. "Why do you come to disturb our peace?—you who have forsaken us."
And the miller's heart answered, "If one who has forsaken you should come back, would you not receive him?" And then there came into his mind a glad thought. Anne Grey might some day turn to him in trouble, and then he would help her, and never—certainly never—reproach her. This thought warmed his heart as he passed into the garden. How sweet was the breath of the flowers! How their delicate shapes outlined themselves in the twilight! There was the little arbor over which Tom had trained the honeysuckle and blush-roses. He had often fancied Anne sitting there in the long summer afternoons sewing and singing to herself. Now the trailers of the rose half hid the entrance, and a bat flew out at the sound of Tom's step. Night moths flitted hither and thither, and winged beetles made the air vibrate with their drowsy buzzing. The stars began to peep out one after another, and a hush seemed to fall on the garden as if the flowers were asleep.
Then Tom stooped his tall form under the rose-trailers and entered the arbor. There was a table in it, and a sort of fixture-seat all round. Tom had made it himself at leisure moments. "If we have little ones," he had said to himself, "there will be a seat for them all." Now he sat in the arbour alone, and the rose-trailers moved in and out with a rustling sound.
The sounds and scents made Tom quite drowsy, and he presently imagined he really saw and heard things which never could have happened. But they were so beautiful that he liked to think them real even afterwards.
The table in the centre of the arbour was fixed, and upon it Tom leaned his arms. So he could see the glimmer of the sky between the branches, and one single bright star that looked, as he thought, kindly on him. He gazed and gazed at the star, and at the outlined branches, and at the peep of sky, till all his heart seemed to open to good—and that is to God. He gazed till self was forgotten in a beautiful dream. Ah! happiness, he saw, did not consist in self-gratification, but in giving up for others. Then he closed his eyes like a child who has wept but is comforted; and it was then that he heard the little brown mouse talking with the flowers. Now the mouse was at the mill, as we know, so this was very odd.
[Illustration: Tom dreaming]
"Why is the miller so sad?" asked a tall lily.
"First of all," said the mouse, "because Anne Grey is married to some one else, but most of all because he has made so many others bear his sorrow."