"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. Ruby's mamma could not help worrying about her little girl, and while naughty little Ruby was curled up in her blankets, sleeping as sweetly as a little bird in its nest, her mamma was listening to the wheels of the doctor's buggy, 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 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 think she has been here to-day."
"Oh, yes, she was here a little while this afternoon," said Mrs. Warren coming to the door. "Why, what is the matter, doctor? Is n't Ruby at home?"
"No, she went to bed all right, but a little while ago when her aunt came and went to look for her, she was gone," said the doctor, feeling as if he did not know now where to turn to look for the little runaway; for where could she possibly be at that time of night, if she had not come over to visit her little friend? "Where can the child be?"
"Is n't she in the house somewhere?" asked Mrs. Warren.
"No, we have looked through the house," the doctor answered. "I don't know what will become of her mother, if I have to go 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."