Madeline and her girl friends spent the rest of that day and part of the next one getting ready for the party, and at last the time came to have it.  Madeline was all dressed up, and she brought her Candy Rabbit out of the closet and smoothed the ribbon on his neck.

“Tinkle!  Tinkle!  Tinkle!” rang the door bell.

“Oh, here come Dorothy and Dick to the party!” cried Madeline, running to meet her friends.

She carried the Candy Rabbit with her.  Dorothy had her Sawdust Doll, but the White Rocking Horse was too large for Dick to bring over.

One after another more children came to the party, among them Mirabell and Arnold.  Mirabell did not bring her Lamb on Wheels for the same reason that Dick left his Horse at home—­the Lamb was a little too large for a house party, though she would fit very well on the lawn.

But Arnold, who was Mirabell’s brother, brought something to the party.  It was the Bold Tin Soldier—­the Captain of the Tin Soldiers, of whom Arnold had a whole box.  And while the little girls who had come to Madeline’s party were smoothing out their dresses and looking at their dolls and talking to one another, Arnold walked off with Dick to a corner of the room.

“Look what I have!” whispered Arnold, showing the Bold Tin Soldier.

“Why did you bring him?” Dick wanted to know.

“So if we don’t like the games the girls play we can go off in a room by ourselves and have fun with my Soldier,” was the answer.  “But maybe we’ll have some fun, anyhow.”

“Let me hold your Soldier for a while,” begged Dick, and Arnold handed over the Captain.

After a while the little boys went back to where the other children were and all began to play games.  Madeline set her Candy Rabbit on the table near Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll, and the two toys looked at each other.

All sorts of games were played.  One was “hide the thimble,” and when it was Madeline’s turn to hide it she put it right between the front legs of her Candy Rabbit as he sat on the table.  Not one of the boys or girls thought of looking there for it, so they had to give up, and it was Madeline’s turn to hide it again.

This time she put the thimble on top of the head of Dorothy’s Sawdust Doll, who had on a new blue ribbon in honor of the party.

It was a gold thimble that the children were playing with, and the Sawdust Doll, catching sight of her reflection in the glass over one of the pictures in the room, noted this fact.

“That golden gleam against the blue of my ribbon is certainly very pretty and becoming,” she thought.  “I hope Dorothy will notice it and will get a gold ornament for my hair.  I like to be a toy, but sometimes it is a great nuisance not to be able to tell your little girl and boy parents what you would like to have them do.”

All this time the children were hunting for the thimble, and, though it was in plain sight, it was not until some time afterward that Mirabell saw it.