Downstairs her father and Aunt Emma were eating their breakfast, and her father was saying sadly,—
"I am sure I don't know what to do with the child. I am so busy with my patients that I can hardly take the time to be with her mother as much as I should be, and Ann does not seem to be able to make her mind. I know she is always getting into mischief, and she certainly does seem to think of more extraordinary things to do than any child I ever knew. She might have been badly burned last night, if I had not seen the blaze, and even if she had escaped herself, the fire might have spread to the boards and fence, and then there is no knowing where it would have stopped. Her mother will never get well while she worries about Ruby, and you see for yourself what harm last night worry did her. I declare I don't know what to do."
"I have a plan," said Aunt Emma, after a little thought. "I will take Ruby back to school with me."
CHAPTER V.
BOARDING-SCHOOL.
"Take Ruby to school with you?" repeated Dr. Harper in surprise.
"Yes, I think that is the only thing to be done," Aunt Emma answered. "Of course you would miss her, but you would know that she was in safe keeping, and that I would take good care of her, and make her as happy as possible; and then without the anxiety of her whereabouts or her doings upon her mind, her mother would have a better chance to get well. You see you never can know what the child will do next, and if she had not made that fire she might not have been found until morning, and you know in what a state her mother would have been by that time. I have a week yet before I must go back to teach, and I will get her ready and take her back with me."
At first it seemed to Dr. Harper as if he could not possibly let his only little daughter go away to boarding-school, even with her aunt, but as he thought more about it, and talked it over with Aunt Emma, he decided that it was the only thing to do with self-willed, mischievous little Ruby, until her mother should be better again, and able to control her.
The next thing to do was to secure her mother's consent, and Dr. Harper said,—