"Why! Why! How did you get him, Patrick?" she asked. "I left him up on the bathroom window sill to dry, after he fell into the bathtub."
"Ah, that accounts for it then!" laughed the gardener. "The wind must have blown him out of the window, and he fell into my barrow just as I set it down to rest. Well, it's lucky I had grass in the barrow instead of stones. If your rabbit had fallen on them he might have broken off his ears."
"That would have been dreadful!" exclaimed Madeline. "Oh, thank you, so much, Patrick, for bringing my Bunny back to me."
"Well, keep him safe, now you have him," advised Patrick.
Then he went off whistling and trundling his empty wheelbarrow, and once more the Candy Rabbit was back with Madeline, where he belonged, and thankful to be there.
"You are nice and dry now," said the little girl, as she looked over her Easter toy. "And you didn't get any more grass stains on you when you fell out of the window. Your ear it still a little bent, but that only makes you look more stylish.
"Now I am going to put a new pink ribbon on your neck, 'cause the one I took off when I was going to wash you is all soiled. I'll put a new ribbon on you and then you may come to the party to-morrow."
Madeline told her mother how the Rabbit had fallen out of the window. Then the little girl got a pretty pink ribbon, and, after tying it on his neck, she again showed her Easter present to Mirabell and Dorothy.
"He looks as good as new," said Mirabell.
"Yes," agreed Dorothy. "I guess falling into the bathtub and the wheelbarrow of grass did him good."