Part 2 (1/2)

LOOKING FOR RUBY

People who are sick are very quick to hear when anything is wrong, and as soon as the doctor opened the door of the sick-roo with Ruby? Where is she?”

Just then the only possible explanation of her absence occurred to the doctor, and he answered,

”She is not in her bed, one over to Ruthy's to spend the night You know she asked perht the last time she went over there for supper, and I suppose she has o 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 o all the way up to Ruthy's after dark,”

said herhas happened to her, though I cannot iine 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

Ruby's irl, and while naughty little Ruby was curled up in her blankets, sleeping as sweetly as a little bird in its nest, her y, rolling out of the yard, with a beating heart, and wondering what had happened to the little girl who had gone to bed not two hours ago

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 knohether 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 think she has been here to-day”

”Oh, yes, she was here a little while this afternoon,” said Mrs Warren co to the door ”Why, what is the matter, doctor? Is n't Ruby at hoht, but a little while ago when her aunt caone,” said the doctor, feeling as if he did not knohere to turn to look for the little runaway; for where could she possibly be at that tiht, if she had not come over to visit her little friend? ”Where can the child be?”

”Is n't she in the house soh the house,” the doctor answered ”I don't knoill becoo back without Ruby

No one could have come into the house and stolen her, that is certain, and yet I cannot conceive where she could have gone to at this hour in the evening This is dreadful”

Neither Mr Warren nor his wife could suggest any place to look for Ruby It was certainly a very strange thing that she could have disappeared fro about it The doctor got into his buggy again and started towards ho what he should do when he had to tell Ruby's irl could not be found

If Ruby could have knohat a heartache her father had, as he drove slowly ho to take such sad news back with hiood, and not make those who loved her so anxious about her

In the mean time, Ruby had stirred uneasily in her sleep, and at last when the oho lived in the tall el, , as she rubbed her eyes open, where she was

The cool evening breeze fanned her face, and the stars looked down upon her, and all at once Ruby reone to sleep In the very depths of her heart she wished that she was back again in her own little bed, with her head on her pillow, and the white spread drawn over her It seearden all alone, with a long, dark walk before her if she should go back to the house; and she began to think that the Swiss Family Robinson had a better tiether, and poor Crusoe must often have been very lonely all by himself, before his man Friday came to live with hiht she would have oodwould have persuaded Ruthy to stay out of doors at night

”I am not a little 'fraid-cat like Ruthy,” said Ruby to herself, trying to pretend that she was not at all lonely nor frightened ”I would just as lief stay out here every night I wonder what ti I was asleep just hours and hours, I think I a since I had my supper I had better eat sory, but she wanted to be as much like the Swiss Family Robinson as possible, so she sat up and sleepily nibbled at some cookies

”I don't think these are very nice cookies,” she said, as she tried to keep up the pretence that she was very hungry ”I wish they were cocoanuts They would be ever so , tall cocoanut-tree,” Ruby went on ”And that it was just full of cocoanuts, and that some monkeys had a nest in it, and would throw me down cocoanuts whenever I wanted one It would hurt if they hit uess I would have to live under another tree, so as to be sure the cocoanuts would n't drop on me I wonder if monkeys live in nests Of course they don't live in bird's-nests, but maybe they take sticks up into trees, and make little nests, and--and--”

Ruby nodded so hard that she woke up again She had nearly gone to sleep sitting straight up, she was so sleepy