The poor child cried so that she could not see the tiny particles; and as she sat, crying and picking up what she could feel, she heard a little scratching under the lid of the old wedding-chest in the corner. Presently, a pretty blue mouse with topaz eyes ran down the side of the chest, and came up to her. Now, if there was anything poor Agnes feared more than death, it was a mouse. The very sight of one had always made her shudder and scream and clutch at her petticoats, and climb up on chairs or tables or anything convenient.
So when she saw her visitor she gave a cry of terror, and climbed nimbly up to the top of a broken chest of drawers in the corner of the garret.
"Don't mind me," said the mouse, politely.
"I beg your pardon, but I'm so awfully afraid of you," said Agnes, shuddering to her toes. "I think I could endure you if it were not for your horrid tail! But you really make me creep all over, don't you see?"
"If you would only take that apron off your head, and exercise a little self-control," said the mouse, with a shade of impatience in its manner, "you would soon see that I am a very superior kind of a mouse. Come, Miss Agnes, I have watched you very often at your work here, and I have a great desire to be of service to you. But there is really no talking reason to a person hunched up on top of a chest of drawers with a pink apron over her head; is there, now?"
Agnes, hearing the mouse talk so pleasantly, made a desperate effort to come down from her perch and converse with the little creature.
After a while the blue mouse's eloquence proved sufficient to induce her to follow it near a crack in the wall, and to peep between the boards, as directed.
There she saw a secret room, full of beautiful things—clothes and jewels—scattered on the floor.
"All these shall be yours, fair Agnes," said the mouse, "if you will carry me in your pocket for a day."