Sister took the box under her arm and went down to the gate to wait for Ralph, who was expected home on an early train.

“Well, I s’pose we might as well eat the pills,” suggested Brother.  “Muriel Elsie’s certainly too sick for pills—­she needs—­ operating on!”

So they ate the pills while they were waiting for Ralph, and they gave Brownie some, too.  As Sister said he didn’t mean to break the doll and he probably felt the way she did when she found she had knocked over Jimmie’s case of butterflies.

CHAPTER XX

PLANS FOR MICKEY

The last pill had disappeared down little red lane, when Ralph was seen to turn the corner.

“Well, Chicks, why so solemn?” he asked cheerfully.  “Sister, have you been crying?”

Sister held out the broken doll silently.

“Why, that’s too bad!” exclaimed Ralph, sitting down on the step beside his little sister.  “What happened to Muriel Elsie?”

“Brownie jerked her out of the hammock and she fell on her head,” Brother explained.  “Can you mend her, Ralph?”

“I’m afraid not,” said Ralph regretfully.  “Mending faces is ticklish work; I might manage an arm or leg, but not a face.  I tell you, Sister—­you take Muriel Elsie down to the Exchange and see if Miss Arline can’t mend her.  Leave her there, ask how much it will cost and when she will be ready, and I’ll give you the money.”

“I’ll go with you, Betty,” Brother offered.  “Let’s go now,”

Molly tied the box up with paper and string and hand in hand Brother and Sister started.

“Certainly I can mend the dollie,” announced Miss Arline when they reached her house and had shown her Muriel Elsie and explained the accident.  “I think I’ll take her into the city with me tomorrow to a doll’s hospital.  You come for her a week from today and she will be ready for you.  I can’t tell how much it will cost, you tell your brother, until I find out what the hospital will charge me.”

On their way home, Brother and Sister met Mickey Gaffney.  They had not seen him since he played school with them, and the sight of him at once suggested something to Brother.

“Say, Nellie Yarrow says you’re going to be in the first grade at school this term,” he said to Mickey.  “I’m going to be in first grade, too.  We’ll be in the same room.”

“Don’t know as I’m going to school,” declared Mickey perversely.  “I didn’t go much last year.”

“Wouldn’t—­wouldn’t your ’father let you?” suggested Sister timidly.

Mickey flushed a little.

“Aw, it wasn’t so much his fault, leastways he said he didn’t care if I went,” he muttered, digging his bare foot into the gravel on one side of the stone flagging.  “After they had him arrested he said I had to go.”

“Didn’t you want to go?” urged Brother, round-eyed.  “I think it’s lots of fun to go to school.”