Then little teeth began gnawing at her bandages and at the ropes that bound her, and in a few moments she was free.
"I am here, Miss Agnes; though, indeed, I won't touch you again!" said the familiar voice of the Blue Mouse. "But if you would only trust me, and carry me in your pocket, how much I could do for you!"
At last Agnes consented to grant his wish and, trembling in every limb, she let the mouse run into her pocket. Without a moment's delay, the bottom of the chest gave way, and Agnes felt herself sinking, sinking. When she recovered her wits, which in that moment of terror seemed fairly to forsake her, there she was in a beautiful garden, filled with ladies and gentlemen walking two and two in a grand procession along a bowery path strewn with roses and carnations. Fountains played in the sunshine, birds sang on the boughs. It was a scene so gay and beautiful, that Agnes clapped her hands for joy.
"How happy I am here!" she cried.
"And happy you shall always be here," said a voice behind her.
Agnes, turning, saw a young gentleman dressed in a blue court costume with topaz buttons, and wearing in his cap a long smooth plume of blue, caught by a brilliant brooch of the same gems.
He explained to her that he was none other than the mouse she had so much feared. Condemned from childhood to remain a mouse until some fair maiden should, of her own free will, allow him to run into her pocket, the unfortunate prince had only now been released from his long imprisonment. This garden belonged to his own palace, and the ladies and gentlemen coming to meet him were his friends and courtiers.
Agnes, shedding tears of penitence over the blindness of her former prejudice, bestowed her hand upon the prince, and was happy evermore.
