"Why, what is the matter?" asked Ruby, in surprise.
"I shall miss you so dreadfully," sobbed Ruthy. "I shall not have any one to play with, that is, any one like you, and I shall miss you all the time."
"But I am going to ask your mamma to let you go with me," Ruby said comfortingly. "I forgot to tell you, but I truly will. Do you suppose I would go away off to boarding-school without you, Ruthy Warren? You might know I would n't. Of course not. Come and let's go in now and ask your mother if you can't go with me."
But Ruthy cried harder than ever.
"But I don't want to go to boarding-school," she sobbed. "I want to stay with my mamma. I should just die if I went way off away from her. I don't want you to go either, Ruby. I don't see what you think it is nice to go to boarding-school for, anyway."
"Now, Ruthy, I thought you would go with me, even if you didn't think it would be very nice at first," Ruby said, in rather reproving tones. "Of course you think it would n't be nice, but it would be after you got used to it, and you would have a trunk, too, maybe. Wouldn't that be nice?"
But the trunk was no comfort to Ruthy. She could not understand how Ruby could bear to think of leaving her mother. She was quite sure she would never be willing to do it, and not Ruby's most eloquent representations to her of how delightful going away with a trunk would be, could induce her to want to accompany her.
"Oh, I wish you were not going, either," was all that Ruby could coax from her, after she had talked until she was tired.