Meanwhile Snip, who was very curious even for a dog, was exceedingly puzzled by the behaviour of the boy next door, and was taking a stroll round to see what he had been doing. Apparently all was as usual; but, on returning to the back door, Snip's sharp nose made him suspect that there was a rabbit in the hutch, and having satisfied himself that he was not mistaken, he gave one sharp, imperative bark, which the servants knew meant that he desired to call their attention to something.
"What's the matter, Snip?" asked cook, opening the back door.
Snip barked again, more imperatively; and cook came out, a lighted candle in her hand.
"Why, some one's left a rabbit here!" she exclaimed, greatly astonished. "I wonder if Miss Kitty and Master Bob were expecting it. I suppose I'd best call them out."
She accordingly did so, and a short while later the sister and brother arrived upon the scene, the former full of excitement.
"Who brought it, cook?" she inquired, as Bob took the rabbit out of the hutch and they examined it by the light of the candle. "Oh, isn't it a love?" she cried, her face aglow with delight.
"I don't know who brought it, miss," cook answered. "We didn't hear any one, although Mary and I were both in the kitchen; but Snip barked to be let out and, as we fancied he heard a cat about, we opened the back door and he rushed out in a fury. I suppose there must have been somebody here."
"Most likely," agreed Bob. "And that somebody was frightened away."
"But who could it have been, Master Bob?" asked Mary, the housemaid, who had come out too.
"I don't know, I'm sure," replied Bob. "I expect it was an errand-boy, or some one like that, sent by Tom Hatch. I saw Tom this morning, and he said his brother had given him a couple of his young rabbits, and you were to have one of them, Kitty; he told me he didn't want to be paid for it."