Madeline took very good care of her Candy Rabbit.  She got a piece of pink ribbon and tied it around her Easter toy’s neck, making him look very pretty.

“Now I am as stylish as Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll, who has a blue ribbon on her hair,” thought the Candy Rabbit.

And because of that very same pink ribbon something dreadful happened a few days later.  I will tell you about it.  After Easter the weather gradually became warmer and sunnier.  Doors and windows could be left open, and the flowers in the yard began to blossom.

One day the Candy Rabbit was placed by Madeline on a chair in the dining room, near the bowl of goldfish on their little round table.  The Sawdust Doll was not in the room, for Dorothy had her toy out in her own yard playing.  The Candy Rabbit was lonesome, for he did not know how to talk to the goldfish.

All of a sudden, in through the open window, jumped the same bad cat that had been there before.  His tail was lashing to and fro, and his whiskers were wiggling up and down.

“Meow!” said the cat.

“Oh, dear, here he is again!” said the Candy Rabbit, and, being able, as all toys are, to speak and understand animal language, the Candy Rabbit went on: 

“Have you come to try to catch a goldfish, Mr. Tom?”

[Illustration:  “It Was Not My Fault,” Said Candy Rabbit.
                                               Page 43]

“Not now!” was the snarling answer.  “I came to pay you back, as I said I would!  Only for your toppling over and making the glass globe tinkle, I would have had a goldfish before this.  It’s all your fault, and I’m going to pay you back!”

“It was not my fault!” said the Rabbit.  “You knocked me over yourself with your switching tail.  But if I could have stopped you in any other way from getting a goldfish, I would have done it.”

“Ha!  So that’s the way you feel about it, is it?” growled the cat.  “Well, I’m going to fix you!”

“How?” asked the Candy Rabbit, wondering what was going to happen.  “What are you going to do?”

“I’m going to carry you off to the fields and lose you in the tall grass,” was the answer.  “Then the next time I want to catch a goldfish you will not give the alarm.”

“Oh, please don’t take me away!” begged the Candy Rabbit.

“Yes, I will!” said the cat.  “I’ll carry you away by that pink ribbon around your neck.”

All of a sudden, before the Candy Rabbit could hop out of the way, the bad cat sprang across the room and caught in his teeth the end of the pink ribbon that was around the neck of the Candy Easter toy.

“Stop it!  Stop!  Please let me go!” cried the Candy Rabbit.

“I’ll fix you!” was all the cat answered.  Then, carrying the Candy Rabbit in his mouth by means of the ribbon, the bad cat sprang out of the window again and was soon trotting through the tall grass of the lots near the house where Madeline lived.