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HAT had been happening at home all this while? When the others woke up in the morning they rushed at once to the dolls’ cradle, and seeing the stick of wood lying there wrapped up in the blankets, they had a great shock. It really looked as if something dreadful had happened to Poor Cecco! Perhaps he had died in the night! But when they unrolled the covers and saw it was only a stick of firewood after all, and just another of Poor Cecco’s tricks, they were pretty angry. He had no business to go away and leave them like that, and worse still, he had taken Bulka with him.

Poor Cecco often disappeared; they were used to that. Very likely he had just gone off early to get himself a new tail, to surprise them with. But Bulka was another matter; Bulka had never been known to go away before.

Tubby in particular was very upset. She remembered how she had quarrelled with Bulka the night before, and called him a cry-baby. Now he had gone, and all her tears would not bring him back.

All that day she sat in a corner, and thought of the terrible things that might be happening to him, one worse