"Good-by, darling. Remember you are going to help me get well again," her mother said, drawing the little girl's face down for a last kiss, and that helped Ruby to be very brave. She kissed her mother over and over again, and then jumped up and went out of the room without one word.
The lump in her throat was growing so big that she knew she should cry in a moment if she did not hurry away.
"I was brave, papa, I was brave," she said, when she went out into the hall and found her father waiting for her; but the tears came then fast and thick for a moment.
"Now you will be my brave little daughter again, I know," said her father, comfortingly, "for it is time for us to start now. I am afraid the train would not wait for us if you were not at the station in time, and it would never do to miss the train on your first journey, would it?"
Ruby smiled through her tears.
"Don't you think they would wait when they saw the trunk on the platform, papa? I should think they would know somebody was going away then, and would wait."
"No, I don't think that even for anything as important as the trunk, the train would wait," her father answered.
Ann helped Ruby put on her hat and jacket with unusual gentleness, and Ruby thought that Ann looked very much as if she wanted to cry.
"Do you feel sorry, really, that I am going away, Ann?" she asked.
"Of course I do, honey," Ann answered.