Mun Chee had a wonderful dream one night. Being a little Chinese aristocrat, she had never played just as the common people’s children play, and in her little heart she sometimes longed to get out, she and her two little brothers, and run wild through the narrow Chinese streets, and to be as free as the winds, just as the children of poor people might do; but she could not do this. So much was due to her station in life, as she was to be a Chinese lady some far-off day. So one night,—just the night before Easter,—after she had fallen asleep on her couch of bamboo, she dreamed a dream as beautiful as a poor child—a child of a coolie even might dream, for dreams are free to all, rich and poor. Perhaps it was because she had gone to sleep wondering if her house would be visited by the Easter rabbit, of which an American friend had told her; perhaps—but then, it does not matter what the reason was, for suddenly she felt some soft little taps on her eyelids, and a warm breath fanned her cheek, and opening her eyes she beheld the dearest, cunningest little rabbit—a white one, with bright pink eyes. It was perched on the edge of her bed, and had awakened her by tapping her Oriental eyelids with its soft white paws. It looked so gentle that she loved it right away, and said: “Who are you?”
It replied in a tiny voice: “If it please your highness, I am the queen of the Easter rabbits; I thought you might like to go with me for a little visit to my realm, the beautiful Easterland.”
“Oh, I likee go,” said Mun Chee. “It must be all light to visit a queen. Yes, yes, I will go, but how?”
“Trust to me, and you shall arrive safely; I will carry you on my back.”
“You? Why, you too small; I such a big girl; you no can cally me.”
“Wait and see!” said Queen Bunny, and with that she began to grow and grow and grow, right before Mun Chee’s astonished eyes, and pretty soon she was as big as a horse.
“Oh, how could you do it?” gasped the little Chinese girl.
“Because I am in league with the fairies, and have all power,” the queen said. “Jump on my back, if it please your ladyship, and we will hasten away.”
She jumped gracefully to the back of the rabbit, and clasped her plump arms tightly around its neck. They bounded up, up, until they were so high in the air that they could not see the world below.