“Have you been meddling with my things again?” demanded Dick.  “Mother, I’ve an engagement at eight o’clock and it’s quarter past now; every blessed collar button is gone from my chiffonier!”

Mother Morrison, who had followed Brother into the room, looked anxiously at him.

“Brother, you haven’t been in Dick’s room today, have you?” she asked him.

Then Sister, whose memory had been waking up, spoke.

“Please, Dick,” she said in a very little voice.  “Please, I had the buttons.”

“Oh, you did!” Dick quite forgot to smile at her.  “What did you want ’em for?  Where are they now?”

“You see, I was playing jackstones with Nellie Yarrow, and afterward I—­I left them in my pocket—­” Sister’s voice trailed off.

She recollected that the dress she had been wearing was now down the laundry chute.

“Mother, something’s got to be done!” fumed Dick.  “I can’t have the kids going through my stuff and helping themselves to whatever they want; those buttons were my solid gold ones and my good studs were in the same box.  There’s the telephone!—­Nina will be furious!  Sister, where did you say that dress was?”

Dick rushed downstairs to answer the telephone, leaving a sorrowful Sister curled up in a forlorn little heap on the bed.

“My blue dress is way down in the laundry,” she wailed.  “The buttons are in the pocket.  Oh, Mother, it’s awful far down there, and it’s dark on the stairs!”

“What’s all the racket about?” inquired Ralph, coming to the door.  “Is Sister crying?  And Dick is trying to smooth down Nina Carson, who seems to be in a bad way.  Want any help with these young ones, Mother?  Anyway, tell a fellow the cause of the excitement.”

Sister smiled through her tears.  “Young ones” was what Molly’s country sister had once called them, and Ralph always said it when he meant to make her laugh.

“I really think Sister should go down and get the buttons from her dress pocket,” said dear Mother Morrison decidedly.  “I have forbidden her, time and again, to touch anything in Dick’s room.  Take your kimona and slippers, Sister, and hurry; I’ll have your bath ready for you when you come back.”

More tears ran down Sister’s round cheeks.  Her eyes were so full of salt water she couldn’t find the armholes of her pink kimona, and Ralph had to help her.

“I’ll go with her, Mother,” he offered.  “I’ll sit on the stairs and wait while she hunts for the buttons; and after this you—­will leave Dick’s things alone, won’t you, Sister?”

Sister promised joyfully, and paddled off downstairs with Ralph.  The dark stairs that led to the laundry didn’t frighten her one bit, and while Ralph sat on the last step and held the door open, Sister snapped on the light and found the blue dress on top of the basket that stood under the chute.  Surely enough, the buttons were in the pocket just as she had left them.  She took the box and hurried back to Ralph.  “Where’s Dick going?” she asked him, as they went upstairs.