mething," said their father; for when Bunny
and his sister spoke in this serious way their parents could tell they
were in earnest.

"What could it be?" asked Mrs. Brown, with a wondering look at her
husband.

"I'll run over and see," he replied. "You children hop back into bed.
You'll catch cold."

"Oh, Daddy! It's Summer yet, and we're even going to sleep out in the
tent when we're on the auto tour," said Bunny. "Let us wait up and see
if Fred really has come home. I hope he has!"

"I hope so, too," said Mother Brown. "Let them lie awake in bed, Daddy,
until you come back from the Ward home."

"All right, I will," Mr. Brown agreed, and as he started across the
moonlighted lawn Bunny and Sue, with many whisperings, noddings and
giggles went back upstairs to their room.

But they did not go to bed. This was one of the times when they did not
do as they were told. But it was only once in a while they did anything
like that. Bunny and Sue were, as a rule, very good.

Well, instead of going to bed they stood by the window where they could
watch the lawn on which Splash and Dix were still playing.

"We mustn't catch cold," said Sue. "We'd better wrap a blanket around
us, Bunny, if we stand by the window, though it isn't cold at all."

"Yep," grunted Bunny, who was so interested in watching his father cross
the grass plot that he did not feel like talking much.

Sue brought a light blanket from her bed and one from Bunny's, and in
these the children wrapped themselves, and stood by the window.

"There he is!" cried Bunny, as he saw the tall figure of his father,
accompanied by a bigger shadow in the moonlight, appear on the lawn.

"Hush!" cautioned Sue. "Don't talk so loud or mother will come up and
make us go to bed."

Bunny "hushed," and then the two children watched. They saw their father
go up the side steps of the Ward house and very soon come out again.

"It didn't take him long to find out," said Bunny in a low voice.

"I hope Fred has come back," whispered Sue.

But it was not, as they learned a little later when their mother came
upstairs to tell them. The children had quickly scampered back to their
beds when they heard their mother coming up, and she found two anxious
faces peering at her over the blankets.

"Was it Fred?" they asked excitedly.

"No, I am sorry to say it was not," answered Mrs. Brown. "It was one of
the boys Fred used to play with, and he went around the back way because
he d