They were rabbits like himself, but quite furry and brand-new. They must have been very well made, for their seams didn't show at all, and they changed shape in a queer way when they moved; one minute they were long and thin and the next minute fat and bunchy, instead of always staying the same like he did. Their feet padded softly on the ground, and they crpet quite close to him, twitching their noses while the Rabbit stared hard to see which side of their clockwork stuck out, for he knew that people who jump generally have something to wind them up. But he couldn't see it. They were evidently a new kind of rabbit altogether.

They stared at him and the little Rabbit stared back. And all the time their noses twitched.

"Why don't you get up and play with us?" one of them asked.

"I don't feel like it,"said the Rabbit, for he didn't want to explain that he had no clockwork.

"Ho!" said the furry rabbit, "It's as easy as anything." And he gave a big hop sideways and stood on his hind legs.

"I don't believe you can!" he said.

"I can!" said the little Rabbit. "I can jump higher than anything!" He meant when the Boy threw him, but of course, he didn't want to say so.

"Can you hop on your hund legs?" asked the furry rabbit.

That was a dreadful question, for the Velveteen Rabbit had no hind legs at all! The back of him was made all in one piece like a pin-cushion. He sat still in the bracken, and hoped that the other rabbits wouldn't notice.

"I don't want to!" he said again.

But the wild rabbits have very sharp eyes. And this one stretched out his neck and looked.

"He hasn't got any hind legs!" he called out. "Fancy a rabbit without any hind legs!" and he began to laugh.

"I have!" cried the little Rabbit. "I have got hind legs. I am sitting on them!"

"Then stretch them out and show me, like this!" said the wild rabbit. And he began to whirl around and dance, till the little Rabbit got quite dizzy.

"I don't like dancing," he said, "I'd rather sit still!" But all the while he was longing to dance, for a funny new tickly feeling ran through him and he felt he would give anything in the world to be able to jump about like these rabbits did.

The strange rabbit stopped dancing, and came quite close. He came so close this time that his long whiskers brushed the Velveteen Rabbit's ear, and then he wrinkled his nose suddenly and flattened his ears and jumped backwards.

"He doesn't smell right!" he exclaimed. "He isn't a rabbit at all! He isn't real!"

"Iam real! said the little Rabbit. "I am Real! The boy said so!" And he nearly began to cry.

J ust then, there was the sound of footsteps and the Boy ran past near them, and with a stamp of feet and a flash of white tails, the two strange rabbits disappeared.

"Come back and play with me!" called the little Rabbit. "Oh, do come back! I know I am Real!" But there was no answer, only the little ants ran to and fro, and the bracken swayed gently where the two strangers had passed. The Velveteen Rabbit was all alone.

"Oh, dear!" he thought. "why did they run away like that? Why couldn't they stop and talk to me?"

For a long time, he lay very still, watching the bracken, and hoping that they would come back. But they never returned. Presently the sun sank lower and the little white moths fluttered about, and the Boy came and carried him home.

Weeks passed and the little Rabbit grew very old and shabby, but the Boy loved him just as much. He loved him so hard that he loved all his whiskers off, and the pink lining to his ears turned grey and his brown spots faded. He even began to lose his shape, and he scarcely looked like a rabbit anymore, except to the Boy. To him, he was always beautiful, and that was all that the little Rabbit cared about. He didn't mid how he looked to other people, because the nursery magic had made him Real, and when you're Real shabbiness doesn't matter.