e 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.

After the thimble game the children played "Blind Man's Buff," "Puss in
the Corner" and "Going to Jerusalem."

Pretty soon it was time to eat ice cream and cake. That is one of the
nicest times at a party, I think; and Dick, Arnold and Herbert, as well
as the other boys and girls, thought the same thing, I am sure. While
they were in another room, eating the good things, the Candy Rabbit and
the Sawdust Doll were left to themselves.

"I have been wanting to talk to you for the longest time!" said the
Sawdust Doll.

"And I have so many things to tell you," said the Candy Rabbit. "Such
remarkable adventures!"

He started to hop across the table, to get nearer to the Sawdust Doll,
but he did not see the thimble which the child