y's mother.

"I won't wake her, but I will just go and peep at her while she is
asleep," said Aunt Emma; and lighting a candle, she followed Ann into
the room where Ruby was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle-bed.

Of course there was no Ruby there. The little girl was curled up in
her blankets out in the yard, under her little tent of boards; and
there was only a little crumpled place in the pillow to show where her
head had nestled.

"Why, where can she be, I wonder?" said Ann in surprise.

"Hush! don't let her mother hear, or she will be worried," said Aunt
Emma, who knew how easily the invalid would be alarmed. "Perhaps she
has gone downstairs to get a drink of water or something."

"No, I am sure she has n't been downstairs, for I have been sitting
right there in the kitchen all the evening," said Ann, positively.
"Oh, Miss Emma, she has got to be the witchiest girl ever you did see.
She's always up to some piece of mischief or another, and it's more
than any one but her mother can do to keep her in order. I try my
best, but it ain't any use at all. She does just as she likes for all
of me, unless I tell her father; and then it worries him so that I
don't like to, when he has so much else on his mind."

"I should like to know where she is now," said Miss Emma, looking very
much puzzled. "There comes her father," she went on, as she heard the
sound of wheels coming into the yard. "Perhaps he will know." She
went downstairs softly, and met the doctor who, was very much surprised
at this unexpected visitor. After he had told her how glad he was to
see her, she told him that Ruby was not upstairs in her bed, and that
Ann did not know where she was, and asked him if he knew what had
become of the little girl.

He looked very anxious.

"Why, no, I have not the least idea," he said gravely. "I kissed her
good-night just before I went out to make a call, and she was all right
in her bed then. I do not see what could have become of her. I hope
we can keep it from her mother, or she will be sadly frightened if she
hears Ruby is not to be found at this hour of the night."

Of course no one could imagine where Ruby had gone, and although they
hunted all over the house, there was not a trace of the little girl to
be seen.

"Perhaps she has been walking in her sleep," suggested Aunt Emma. "She
may have wandered downstairs and out into the yard while she was
asleep, and been too frightened when she