ep all night.'

Here the conversation ended, and I could not help thinking how foolish
it was for people to permit themselves to be terrified for nothing. Here
is a little girl, now, thought I, in a nice clean room, and covered up
warm in bed, with pretty green curtains drawn round her, to keep the
wind from her head, and the light in the morning from her eyes; and yet
she is distressing herself, and making herself really uncomfortable, and
unhappy, only because I, a poor, little, harmless mouse, with scarcely
strength sufficient to gnaw a nutshell, happened to jump from the table,
and throw down, perhaps, her own box.--Oh! what a pity it is that people
should so destroy their own comfort! How sweetly might this child have
passed the night, if she had but, like her sister, wisely reflected that
a noise could not possibly hurt them; and that, had any of the family
occasioned it, by falling down, or running against anything in the dark
which hurt them, most likely they would have heard some more stirring
about.

And upon this subject the author cannot help, in human form (as well as
in that of a mouse), observing how extremely ridiculous it is for people
to suffer themselves to be terrified upon every trifling occasion that
happens; as if they had no more resolution than a mouse itself, which is
liable to be destroyed every meal it makes. And, surely, nothing can
be more absurd than for children to be afraid of thieves and
house-breakers; since, as little Mary said, they never want to seek
after children. Money is all they want; and as children have very seldom
much of that in their possession, they may assure themselves they are
perfectly safe, and have therefore no occasion to alarm themselves if
they hear a noise, without being able to make out what it is; unless,
indeed, like the child I have just been writing about, they would be
so silly as to be frightened at a little mouse; for most commonly the
noises we hear, if we lay awake in the night, are caused by mice running
about and playing behind the wainscot: and what reasonable person would
suffer themselves to be alarmed by such little creatures as those? But
it is time I should return to the history of my little make-believe
companion, who went on, saying--

The conversation I have been relating I overheard as I lay concealed in
a shoe that stood close by the bedside, and into which I ran the moment
I jumped off the table, and where I kept snug till the next morn