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"I don't believe Ruthy's papa and mamma would want to spare her," answered the doctor. "But you will be with Aunt Emma, you know, dear; and you love her, and she will take very good care of you." "But I want Ruthy, too," Ruby said, looking very much as if she was going to begin crying again at the thought of being separated, not only from her father and mother, but from her little friend as well.
Before she reached Ruthy's, however, she had banished all unpleasant thoughts, and her one idea was to astonish Ruthy with the information that she was going to boarding-school, and was to have a trunk to take with her. She ran upon the porch calling, "Ruthy, Ruthy! Where are you?" Mrs. Warren came to the door. "Good-morning, Ruby," she said, looking gravely at the little girl.
No one could have heard them, not even the birds in their nests up in the tree, if she had spoken aloud, but a secret always seemed so delightfully mysterious when it was whispered, that she rarely told one aloud. "I am going to be cast away on a desert island," she said, and Ruthy's blue eyes opened to their widest extent.
It did not take very long to drive over to Ruthy's house, and the doctor did not wait to hitch staid old Dobbin, but jumped out and ran up the steps to the house, anxious to know whether Ruby was really there. Although he was quite sure that she must be, yet he was impatient to satisfy himself. "Is Ruby here?" were his first words, when Mr. Warren opened the door. "Why, no," Mr. Warren answered.
"I don't believe she would go all the way up to Ruthy's after dark," said her mother, in anxious tones. "I am afraid something has happened to her, though I cannot imagine what it could be." "Don't think about it till I bring her back safe and sound," said the doctor as he hurried away. But it was a great deal easier to give this advice than to follow it.
"She is not in her bed, my dear, and I am afraid she has run away and gone over to Ruthy's to spend the night. You know she asked permission to stay all night the last time she went over there for supper, and I suppose she has made up her mind to go without permission. It is too bad in her to act this way and worry you. I will drive over after her right away, and bring her back in a few minutes."
Ruby felt very important as she looked up at the window and waved good-by to her aunt. It was great fun going out to walk this way, with a whole string of girls behind her, instead of going down the road with a hop and a skip and a jump to Ruthy's house.
"I won't tell you a single word unless you promise, and you will be awfully sorry if I don't tell you, for this is the most splendid plan I ever made up in all my life. It is just like a book." Ruthy's curiosity overcame her scruples about knowing something which she could not tell her mother. "All right, I won't tell a single person," she said, earnestly. "Tell me what it is."
But she was making something for Ruthy's Christmas present in which she needed her doll's help very much. Aunt Emma was showing Ruby how to crochet the dearest little baby sacque and hood, for a gift to Ruthy, and as Ruthy's doll was just exactly the same size as Ruby's, Ruby could try the sacque upon her own doll every now and then, and be quite sure that she was getting it the right size.
"I don't want any one to hear me telling you about it, so let's go down under the apple-tree, with the dolls." Ruthy gathered up her children, and in a few moments the two little girls were sitting side by side on the low bench, which Ruthy's father had put there just for their comfort. "It's the grandest plan," began Ruby. "Am I in it, too?" asked Ruthy, half wistfully and half fearfully.
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