“Yes, and I’m going to get him out!” exclaimed Madeline.

She quickly stooped down, grasped the Candy Rabbit by his ears, and lifted him, dripping wet, out of the bathtub of water.

“Oh, he’s soaked through, poor thing!” murmured Dorothy.

“Do you s’pose he’s spoiled?” asked Mirabell.

“I—­I hope not,” said Madeline with a catch in her voice, as if she were going to cry.  “I guess I got him out in time.”

“I think so, too.”

Madeline’s mother, hearing the screams of the little girls in the bathroom, ran to see what the matter was.

“Has anything happened, children?” she asked.

“My Candy Rabbit got caught on the towel and I pulled him into the bathtub of water,” Madeline explained.  “Will he come all to pieces, Mother?”

Mother looked at the Candy Rabbit carefully.  He did not seem to be harmed much.  Inside of him his heart was beating very fast, because of his adventure, but no one knew that.

“I think he is not much damaged, Madeline,” said her mother, with a smile.  “He is made of very hard sugar—­is your Candy Rabbit.  It would take more of a soaking than he got to melt him.  What were you doing with him in the bathroom?”

“I was going to wash him, Mother, ’cause maybe he got soiled in the peddler’s basket.”

“Well, he has had his bath all right,” said Mother, with a laugh.  “And I think he is pretty clean.  He does not seem to be melting any, but it would be well to let him dry.  Here, I’ll set him on the window sill and open the window.  The breeze will dry him off better than if you wiped him with a towel.  Then you will not wipe off any of his sugar.”

“Oh, I’m so glad he is all right,” said Madeline.  “I thought he would melt and run down the drain pipe from the bathtub.”

“Drain pipe!” The Rabbit shivered.

Mother set the Candy Rabbit, which was quite wet, on a clean cloth on the bathroom window sill, leaving the sash open.

“The cloth will soak up some of the water, and the gentle wind will blow the rest off and dry him,” said Madeline’s mother.

The three little girls looked at the Candy Rabbit sitting on the sill of the open window in the bathroom.

“Doesn’t he look cute?” cried Madeline.

“Too sweet for anything!” said Dorothy.

“Of course he looks sweet!” said Mirabell.  “He’s made of sugar, you know!”

Then the three little girls laughed and went downstairs to play with
Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll and Mirabell’s Lamb on Wheels.

Left to himself on the window sill, the Candy Rabbit took a long breath.

“That was a narrow escape I had,” he said.  “I was very nearly drowned and melted in the water.  I had better keep very still and quiet until I am quite dry again, or I may come apart like the Jack in the Box who jumped off his spring.  Yes, I will sit here very quietly until I am dry.  I do feel so wet and sticky!”