desert island, and that chattering monkeys were jumping about over her head in the branches of great palm and tall cocoanut-trees.

If Ruthy could only be cast away with her it would be ever so much nicer, for then she would not have to enjoy it all by herself; but she reflected that it was just as well that Ruthy could not come over and play, for she probably would be afraid to sleep out there, and would cry and want to go into the house just when the play grew the most interesting.

No thought of fear entered venturesome Ruby's mind. It would be an easy matter for her to slip out of the house after she was supposed to be fast asleep in her trundle bed, which was not beside her mother's bed any longer, but in a room by itself. Ruby did not know that the the last thing her father did every night before he went to bed, was to go and take a look at his little girl, and see that she was sleeping comfortably; and very often he went into her room in the evening, soon after she had gone to sleep.

Of course she knew that she was going to do a naughty thing, but I am sorry to say that Ruby did not very often let that interfere with anything she wanted to do now, she had her own way so much.

She was so excited over her plan for the night that she was very quiet all the rest of the afternoon, and Ann said rather suspiciously,—

"You're up to some new mischief, Ruby Harper, I'll venture, or you would never be so quiet all at once. I know you. Now do be a good girl, and don't keep worrying your poor ma so about you."

"Never you mind what I am going to do," answered Ruby, pertly, and just then Ann saw that her cookies were missing.

"Well, where on earth are all my cookies?" she exclaimed. "Now, Ruby Harper, you tell me this very minute what you have been doing with them. I know just as well as anything that you never ate such a lot as that, and I don't see what you could have been doing with them. You go and get them and fetch them back to me right away."

Ruby made a face at her and darted away. She was not going to bring the cookies back nor tell where they were. What would she do when she was shipwrecked if she did not have a store of provisions in her hut, as she called her little house.

She knew it would not do to tell Nora about her plan, and she was so full of it that she felt as if she could not keep it to herself any longer, so she ran over to Ruthy's house.

She found Ruthy playing with her paper dolls on the wide back porch, and for a few minutes she pretended that she had come over to see her paper nieces and nephews, for the children always called themselves aunts to each other's dolls.

"Oh, I have got a plan to tell you about, Ruthy," she said presently. "I don't want any one to hear me telling you about it, so let's go down under the apple-tree, with the dolls."

Ruthy gathered up her children, and in a few moments the two little girls were sitting side by side on the low bench, which Ruthy's father had put there just for their comfort.

"It's the grandest plan," began Ruby.

"Am I in it, too?" asked Ruthy, half wistfully and half fearfully. She always liked to be in Ruby's plans, and felt a little left out when her little friend wanted to do without her, and yet sometimes Ruby's plans were so very extraordinary that she did not enjoy helping to carry them out at all.

"Well, you could be in it, only you see you can't very well," Ruby answered in a rather mixed 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 my house, so you could be in the plan, it would n't be of any use, for it would be just like you to get afraid as soon as it was dark, and then you would cry and want to go back into the house."

"I am afraid I would," Ruthy answered meekly, not resenting the accusation of cowardice. "I should think you would be afraid too, Ruby; and then what will your papa and mamma think when they find out in the night that you are gone."

"They won't find out," answered Ruby, easily disposing of that objection. "You see I shall wait till after they think I have gone to sleep to go out to my hut. I will get most undressed to-night at bed-time and then put my nightie on over the rest of my clothes, and when papa comes in to kiss me good-night he will never think of my getting up again. Then I will creep downstairs as softly as a mouse, and out into the yard. It will be such fun to roll up in the blankets, and pretend that they are the skins of wild animals, and I shall lie awake for ever so long listening to hear if any bears come around, or lions. Oh, it will be such fun," and Ruby's eyes sparkled. Ruthy looked troubled.

"I don't think it will be a bit nice," she said presently. "I don't believe your mamma would like it one single bit; and suppose somebody should carry you off when you are out there all by yourself."

"You just can't make me afraid, I guess, Ruthy Warren," sniffed Ruby, scornfully. "You are such a 'fraid-cat that you never want to do anything in all your life but play paper dolls. I might have known you would n't see what fun it is to play Swiss Family Robinson. Now don't you dare tell any one a single word about it. Remember you promised across your heart."

"I sha'n't tell," Ruthy answered, "but I do wish you would n't do it, Ruby. Why, I shall be as scared as anything if I wake up in the night and think that you are out there in your house all alone in the pitch dark. I should be so frightened if I was you that I would just scream and scream till some one heard me and came