“Oh, Veve! See what you’ve done!” Jane exclaimed impatiently. “If that box had contained glass, it would have been smashed!”
“It wasn’t my fault,” Veve mumbled, starting to pick up the books. “The old box just fell over.”
“You mean you accidentally pulled it down. Veve, you never stop to think before you act, and then when it’s your fault, you don’t like to admit it! Brownies believe in being honest about their mistakes.”
Although it was quite dark in the attic, Connie saw that tears were coming into Veve’s eyes. She really thought Jane was being too severe.
“Oh, why make a fuss about it?” she interposed. “Of course, Veve didn’t mean to do it.”
“Well, you’re not being very nice yourself to blame Veve every time she has an accident,” said Rosemary, siding with Connie. “At lunch today when you upset your glass of milk, no one said a word.”
Jane started to say that the milk had spilled only because Sunny had joggled her elbow, but thought better of it.
“Sorry,” she muttered. “I wouldn’t have said anything about the box, only I think we should be careful or Mrs. Gordon won’t want us to play up here.”
“We _all_ should be careful,” emphasized Connie.
She and Sunny helped Veve pick up the books and stack them back in the box. The task had just been finished, when Rosemary let out a squeal of excitement.
Rosemary had come upon a box of old buttons in a cardboard box tucked in the drawer of a rusty sewing machine.
“Say, maybe the golden locket is in there!” exclaimed Veve.
Hopefully the girls examined the many odd shapes and designs of the buttons. Some were of brass or silver; others were of glass and tin.
“Oh, see this button!” declared Jane, selecting one from the collection. “It has the face of George Washington on it and must be very rare.”
“And here’s one in the shape of a little house,” added Rosemary. “One never sees buttons like these today.”
“Except in collections,” contributed Connie. “It would be nice if the Brownies could save buttons, only we have so many other interesting things to do.”
The girls spent nearly half an hour studying the assortment. So fascinating was the pastime, that they forgot their disappointment over failure to find the missing locket.
Time passed so swiftly that the girls all were quite startled when Mrs. Gordon called from the foot of the stairs to ask them to wash up for supper.