line and Herbert, Dorothy and Dick, having seen the present
Madeline's mother had received, had come back into the room again.

"What shall we do now?" asked Madeline.

"Let's play with your Rabbit and my Doll," suggested Dorothy.

Madeline thought this would be nice, but as Dick did not care much about
such fun he said he and Herbert would go back home and get out his
Rocking Horse.

"And I'll get Arnold and his Tin Soldiers and we'll have some fun," he
added. "Come on, Herb."

"If you see Mirabell, send her over here to play with us," called
Dorothy to her brother, and Dick said he would do so. "Tell her to bring
her Lamb on Wheels," she added.

The two little girls had good times playing with the Sawdust Doll and
the Candy Rabbit, and, after a while, Madeline's mother brought in a
plate of cookies for the little girls to eat.

"We'll have a play party," said Madeline. "I'll set my Candy Rabbit up
here on the goldfish stand where he can watch us, for he can't eat
anything, you know."

"And I'll set my Sawdust Doll over in this chair where she can see us,"
said Dorothy. "My Doll can eat make-believe things when I have a play
party, but we won't pretend that now. We'll just eat the cookies
ourselves."

"Yes," agreed Madeline. So she put her Candy Rabbit on the goldfish
stand.

This was a round table on which stood a bowl of real, live goldfish. The
fish swam around in the water, and now and then they stopped swimming to
look out through the glass with their big, round eyes. The top of the
goldfish globe was open, and sometimes Madeline was allowed to feed the
fish when her mother stood by. The fish ate tiny bits of biscuit bought
for them at the fish, bird and dog store.

Dorothy's Sawdust Doll was propped up in a chair not far from the
goldfish. Then the two little girls began to eat the cookies.

While this was going on a bad cat had sneaked into the room. The cat was
a big fellow, and he often got into mischief. He sometimes chased birds,
and, more than once, Patrick, the gardener at Dick and Dorothy's house,
had driven him away from the coops where the little chickens lived with
the old hen.

"Goodness, I hope that cat isn't after me!" thought the Candy Rabbit.

"Mercy! I hope the cat doesn't carry me off, the way the dog Carlo once
did," thought the Sawdust Doll.

But the bad cat was paying no attention to either the Doll or the
Rabbit. The cat's eyes were on the live goldfish in the glass bowl,