Agnes trembled with horror so that she could hardly bring herself to say, "Thank you kindly, good Mr. Blue Mouse, but I hardly need anything new in the way of clothes, going out as little as I do. O—o—oh!" she exclaimed, catching her breath, as the mouse seemed to scuttle toward her.
"Do not fear! I am entirely too proud to obtrude my company where it is so little desired. Farewell, Miss Agnes; I leave you. But before I go, allow me to arrange this little difficulty for you."
The gallant little mouse whisked his tail (that hateful tail!), twice over the pile of sand, and at once, every grain of the shining heap, and all that lay scattered over the garret floor, flew back into the barrel.
"Thank you, kind Mr. Blue Mouse," cried the grateful Agnes; but no answer came. Her benefactor was nowhere to be seen. She looked in vain for the crack in the wall he had led her to; it was no longer in view.
When the wicked aunt found that Agnes had completed her task, she flew into a violent rage, and determined to rid herself forever of the girl. So, taking her again into the garret, she bound her hand-and-foot, tied a handkerchief across her mouth to still her cries, and, opening the old wedding-chest in the corner, thrust poor Agnes bodily into it, closing the lid with a vicious bang, and locking it with the great iron key.
Shutting Agnes into the Chest.
"Lie there till doomsday, you tiresome thing!" said the wicked aunt, going down-stairs to eat her supper.
Poor Agnes thought she must soon die of suffocation, but just then she heard a scratching noise; four little feet scuttled over her face, and a long smooth tail whisked by her ear.
"Ugh!" groaned poor Agnes. "It's a mouse shut up here with me! Oh! why didn't she kill me, outright?"