But when the Bunny was taken out of Rosa's pocket and set on the supper table in the light, he looked around him. It was quite a different home from Madeline's—not nearly so nice, the Candy Rabbit thought, but of course he dared say nothing.
"Ah, what a fine Rabbit! Where did you get him?" asked Rosa's father.
"He was thrown away on a veranda of a house where I got no pennies," she answered. "No one wanted him, so I took him."
"He is a fine Candy Rabbit," said Joe, the peddler, looking at the Bunny. "He is almost new. I guess he came from an Easter novelty counter. Once I sold Easter toys, but now I sell only pins and needles. Yes, he is a fine Rabbit, Rosa. Are you going to eat him? He is made of candy."
"Eat him! Oh, no! I am going to keep him, always!" said the little girl, hugging the Rabbit in her arms.
The Bunny liked to be hugged and petted, and, though he would rather have been in Madeline's house, still he was glad the little organ girl liked him.
"Nobody wanted the Rabbit, so I took him," said Rosa, and she really thought this was so.
But of course Madeline wanted her Candy Rabbit very much. And when she and Dorothy and Mirabell came back to the veranda after their play in the sand pile and found the Sawdust Doll there and the Bunny gone, poor Madeline felt very bad indeed. She cried, and she looked all over for her Easter toy, but he was not to be found.
At first Madeline thought perhaps her brother or one of the other boys had taken the Bunny to tie to the kite again, but Herbert said that he and his chums had not seen the toy.
Then Madeline thought perhaps Carlo, the little dog, had carried the Bunny away, as once he carried off the Sawdust Doll, but this could not have happened, as Carlo had been kept chained in his kennel all that day.