“It’s just like the perfume counter in the store,” said the Rabbit, speaking out loud, which he could do now, as there were no human eyes to see him.  “It’s just like perfume!”

“It is perfume!” a voice suddenly said, and the Candy Rabbit was very much surprised.

“Who are you?” he asked.

And then he saw, standing on the shelf near him, what seemed to be a little doll made of glass.  On her head was a funny little cap, ending in a point, like the cap a dunce wears in school in the story books, and as the Candy Rabbit hopped nearer this Glass Doll the sweet smell of perfume became stronger.

“Where is all the nice smell?” asked the Candy Rabbit.

“I am it,” answered the Glass Doll.  “I am made hollow, and inside I am filled with perfume.  There is a hole in the top of my head and up through my pointed cap, and whenever the lady stands me on my head and jiggles me up and down some perfume spills out on her handkerchief.”

“Stands you on your head!” cried the Candy Rabbit.  “I shouldn’t think you would like that!”

“Oh, well, I’m used to it by this time,” said the Glass Doll.  “But tell me, who are you, and what are you doing here?”

“I am a Candy Rabbit, and I guess I am going to be an Easter present,” was the answer.  And, surely enough, he was.

Later that night Madeline’s mother opened the closet door.  The Candy Rabbit saw her take down the Glass Doll, tip her upside down and sprinkle a little perfume on her fingers, which she rubbed on her hair.

“And now we shall hide the Easter baskets, so Madeline and Herbert may hunt for them and find them to-morrow morning,” said the lady.  “I must hide this Rabbit extra well, so Madeline will have a lot of fun searching for him.”

“Put him behind the piano,” said a man.  He was the children’s father.

“I will,” said Mother, and that is where the Candy Rabbit was hidden.  Near him was placed a little basket filled with Easter eggs.  Some of them were made of candy, and others were like those in the store—­filled with pretty scenes.

“Those are the places I thought were Fairyland,” said the Candy Rabbit to himself, as he looked at the basket of eggs.  “I wish some Chicken or Duck were here for me to talk to.  Eggs can’t say very much.”

And of course that was true.  Not until an egg turns into a chicken can it move about and say things by cackling—­or crowing, if it’s a rooster instead of a hen.

“I suppose I might hop around the room and find some one to talk to,” thought the Candy Rabbit to himself, when he noticed that he was left alone behind the piano with the basket of eggs.  “But perhaps it would be better to wait, since I am a stranger here.”

So the Candy Rabbit kept very still and quiet all night, and in the morning it was Easter Sunday.

Herbert and Madeline were up early, for it was one of the joys of their lives to hunt for Easter eggs.  Eagerly they ran about the rooms, looking under chairs, on mantels, behind the phonograph and beneath the sofa.