Ruby at School

by Mrs. George A. Paull

Of course there was no Ruby there. The little girl was curled up in her blankets out in the yard, under her little tent of boards; and there was only a little crumpled place in the pillow to show where her head had nestled.

"Why, where can she be, I wonder?" said Ann in surprise.

"Hush! don't let her mother hear, or she will be worried," said Aunt Emma, who knew how easily the invalid would be alarmed. "Perhaps she has gone downstairs to get a drink of water or something."

"No, I am sure she has n't been downstairs, for I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening," said Ann, positively. "Oh, Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest girl ever you did see. She's always up to some piece of mischief or another, and it's more than any one but her mother can do to keep her in order. I try my best, but it ain't any use at all. She does just as she likes for all of me, unless I tell her father; and then it worries him so that I don't like to, when he has so much else on his mind."

"I should like to know where she is now," said Miss Emma, looking very much puzzled. "There comes her father," she went on, as she heard the sound of wheels coming into the yard. "Perhaps he will know." She went downstairs softly, and met the doctor who, was very much surprised at this unexpected visitor. After he had told her how glad he was to see her, she told him that Ruby was not upstairs in her bed, and that Ann did not know where she was, and asked him if he knew what had become of the little girl.

He looked very anxious.

"Why, no, I have not the least idea," he said gravely. "I kissed her good-night just before I went out to make a call, and she was all right in her bed then. I do not see what could have become of her. I hope we can keep it from her mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of the night."

Of course no one could imagine where Ruby had gone, and although they hunted all over the house, there was not a trace of the little girl to be seen.

"Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep," suggested Aunt Emma. "She may have wandered downstairs and out into the yard while she was asleep, and been too frightened when she woke up to know how to find her way back into the house. I have heard of children doing such things."

"But she could n't have gone past the door without my seeing her," said Ann, very positively. "I have been sitting right there in the kitchen all the evening, and I am sure I would have heard her, if she had gone past. I never knew Ruby to walk in her sleep; but then I would n't say she might n't have done it this time, only I know she did n't walk past the kitchen door and go out that way."