"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.
The first thing he saw was a misty little ladder, made apparently of
the cobwebs which festooned the mill. The ladder reached from the
table right up through the floor and through the next floor, and from
thence right up through the roof.
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