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“Oh, I’m so glad he wasn’t broken!” she exclaimed.

“So am I!” said the lady. “How remarkable! The rubber ball rolled along just in time. If every time any one or anything fell a rubber ball would happen along it would be very nice, wouldn’t it?”

“Indeed it would,” answered the girl clerk.

And, mind you, I’m not saying that the Calico Clown or the Monkey on a Stick pushed the rubber ball off the toy counter so that it rolled over in time for the Candy Rabbit to fall on it. I am not saying that for sure, but it might have happened.

“I’d better wrap this Rabbit up before anything else happens to him,” said the clerk, with a laugh.

“Please do,” begged the lady.

As for the Candy Rabbit, his little sugar heart was beating very fast because of the fright he had got when he thought he was going to be broken to bits. But of course neither the lady nor the girl knew this. They just thought he was made of sugar, and nothing else.

The girl quickly wrapped the Rabbit up in some sheets of soft tissue paper, and some padding made of curled wood, called excelsior. Some of the curled wood got in the Rabbit’s ear and tickled him and made him smile.

“Well, now I am going on a journey,” said the Candy Rabbit to himself, as he felt the lady carrying him out of the store. “I wish I had time to say good-bye to my new friends on the Easter counter, and to the Calico Clown and the Monkey on a Stick. But perhaps I shall see them again, and maybe I shall meet the Sawdust Doll or the Bold Tin Soldier.”

Just what happened, while he was wrapped in the store bundle, of course the Candy Rabbit did not know, but he felt that he was being taken on quite a journey.

And indeed he was, for the lady who had bought him for an Easter present rode home with him in an automobile, and once, in the street, the fire engines came along and the automobile had to hurry to get out of the way. All that the Candy Rabbit could hear was a great noise, a rumble, a clang, a ringing of bells, and much shouting. Then the automobile went on again, and soon stopped.

The Candy Rabbit felt himself being lifted from the seat of the automobile, and, still in his bundle, he was carried toward a house. He did not know it at the time, but it was to be a new home for him.

Mirabell’s mother, who was Madeline’s Aunt Emma, was the lady who had bought the Candy Rabbit.

“Here is Madeline’s Easter present that I promised her,” said Mirabell’s mother, handing the wrapped-up Bunny to Madeline’s mother. “And there are some eggs in a basket for Herbert. Hide them away from the children until to-morrow.”

“I will,” said Madeline’s mother, and then she carried the bundles into the house, while Mirabell’s mother went on home in her automobile.

“Oh, Mother! What have you?” cried the voice of a little girl, as the lady entered the house with the bundle in which the Candy Rabbit was wrapped.

“Is it something good to eat?” asked a boy’s voice.

“Now, Herbert and Madeline, you must not ask too many questions,” said their mother, with a laugh. “This isn’t exactly Christmas, you know, but it will soon be Easter, and—-“

“Oh, I know what it is!” cried the little girl, whose name was Madeline. “It’s the eggs and baskets we have to hunt for on Easter morning, Herbert! Oh, what fun!”

“Hurray!” cried Herbert. “I wish it were Easter now.”

“It soon will be,” said his mother, and then she put away the Candy Rabbit where the children could not find him. And the place where she put him was in a closet in her room. She took the curled wood and the paper wrappings from the Rabbit, and set him on a shelf.