up fashion.

"Why can't I?" Ruthy asked.

"Well, I'll tell you all about it, and then you will see that you
couldn't very well," Ruby answered. "But first of all you must
promise me honest true, black and blue, that you will never, never
breathe a word of it to any one."

"Not even to mamma?" asked Ruthy, who always felt better when she told
her mother all about everything.

"No, not to anyone in all the wide world," Ruthy answered. "I won't
tell you a single word unless you promise, and you will be awfully
sorry if I don't tell you, for this is the most splendid plan I ever
made up in all my life. It is just like a book."

Ruthy's curiosity overcame her scruples about knowing something which
she could not tell her mother.

"All right, I won't tell a single person," she said, earnestly. "Tell
me what it is."

"Promise across your heart," Ruby insisted, for just then the little
girls had a fashion of thinking that promising across their hearts made
a promise more binding than any other form of words.

"I promise, honest true, black and blue, 'crost my heart," Ruthy said
very earnestly, and then the two heads were put close together while
Ruby whispered her wonderful secret.

No one could have heard them, not even the birds in their nests up in
the tree, if she had spoken aloud, but a secret always seemed so
delightfully mysterious when it was whispered, that she rarely told one
aloud.

"I am going to be cast away on a desert island," she said, and Ruthy's
blue eyes opened to their widest extent.

"Why, how can you, when there is n't any desert island anywhere near
here for miles and miles?" she exclaimed.

"Oh, you are so stupid," Ruby exclaimed impatiently. "Of course I mean
to pretend I am cast away. I am going to pretend that down by the barn
is a desert island, and that little house I have built with boards is
my hut, and I am going to sleep out there all by myself to-night, and I
have some provisions and everything all ready."

"But will you dare stay out there all alone when it gets dark?" asked
Ruthy in awed tones, feeling quite satisfied that she was left out of
this plan, for she knew she should never dare to do such a thing, no
matter how much Ruby might want her to join her.

CHAPTER II.

CARRYING OUT HER PLAN.

"Of course I would dare," answered Ruby, positively. "I am not such a
coward as you are, Ruthy. You see, even if your mamma would let you
come over and stay at