C. Kernahan

“ 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. ”

“ He stretched himself on a faded couch while he considered where to begin his operations, and stared at the deeply-cut initials on the mantelshelf, and regretted that the chimney-piece in the nursery at home, being stone, did not lend itself to similar delights. With a sigh he rolled over, and the rocking-horse met his gaze. He looked at it so long that his eyes blinked. Older people would have said that just then the old horse creaked—as old things have a way of doing. But children understand these things better than old folks who have grown dull. ”

“ Tom's "living-room" was in the basement of the mill. In it were a table, a chair, a bed, and a cupboard. There was also a hanging bookshelf, with a row of books on it, which Tom never opened now. Through the ceiling of this room descended a ladder white with flour. If you climbed this ladder you found yourself in a room smothered with flour-dust, and your ears were almost deafened by the sound of the machinery overhead which the wind-impelled mill-wheel kept in motion, while the descending stream of ground flour travelled unceasingly down from the grinding-wheel to the bin below. ”

“ Then the maiden plucked the flower, and bore it away from the birds and the sunshine, away from the wind and the trees, to a squalid court in a great city, where a dying woman lay, haggard and wan, upon a bed. And as the flower looked into the soul of the dying woman, its fair leaves seemed to wither and wilt, as though some foul breath had come forth upon it, for therein it could see nothing because of the blackness and the sin. ”

“ You look ever so much better already," said Basil, tugging away at the stirrup. "And I dare say when you get back to Robbie he will have you painted up, and then you will feel just like you used to feel."
"Yes," said the old horse; "he will have me done up like new, and he will tell his little boy to love me for his sake, and all my happy days will begin again. Often at night I have listened to the wind roaring in the chimney and have shivered with cold, and have thought how Robbie would have put a rug over me if he were here." ”

“ And there passed from that room a shining angel, and lo! on her bosom lay a little flower.
WATER-LILY'S MISSION
"Come away, beautiful flower," said the kingfisher; "do not waste your beauty in this melancholy mere; float away down the gleaming river where tall bulrushes grow and where you shall find companions."
But the water-lily said, "No, I cannot go, for up in yonder tower is a prisoner, and I cheer his lonely days. He watches me and smiles, and forgets that he is a captive. I cannot leave one so unhappy." ”

“ The spiders were white, too, which made them look larger. Even the mice caught in the traps were white with flour.
Now at eight o'clock every evening Tom sat down at the round wooden table, and ate his bread and cheese by the light of a tallow candle inserted in the neck of a bottle. And every night at this time there crept out from a crevice near the cupboard a tiny brown mouse, covered with flour-dust. This little mouse seemed eager and hungry, but it never ventured near the traps where the alluring cheese smelt so deliciously. ”

“ Now from this time the mouse spoke no more to Tom, though he often saw the little brown creature. It is only to the lonely and sorrowful that mice and trees and clouds and wind talk much. And the miller was happy, for had not Anne consented to marry him, and was not the wedding-day no farther distant now than to-morrow?
Anne visited the mill with her husband a week later, and she said, "There are many mice here. ”

“ Why don't you set traps for them?"
"I cannot do that," said the miller. "One mouse has taught me more than all the books I have read. The mice are welcome to what they take of the grain."
And Anne questioned no more. It was enough for her that she and Tom were together. So I suppose the little brown mouse, or at least its descendants, still live on unmolested at the mill.
THE OLD ROCKING-HORSE
He was a very old rocking-horse indeed. His first master, sunny-headed little Robbie, had grown into a man with a beard, and had given his old playmate to his sister's children. ”

“ So the old horse was carried off to the back yard.
But nobody knew that his heart was broken!
THE MESSAGE OF THE LILY
"Little flower, little flower," said the birdie, "why are you so silent and sad?"
"I am not sad, sweet sister," whispered the flower gently; "ah! no, but I have seen an angel. Yestere'en, as I slept, my birdie, being all aweary with gazing up into your bird-land home among the branches, and watching the merry sunlight come and go, and strike shafts of golden flame among the green, I dreamt of heaven and of the holy angels; and lo! ”

“ And he fell to thinking with shame that he had not given even a "Good-day" to those who had brought their corn to him to grind, and that when he passed through the village he had spurned children and dogs who had once been favourites of his, and had come to him with the confidence of old playmates. ”