It was, therefore, surely an evil fate that made Aunt Anne begin to go upstairs later in the afternoon, just as Donald was descending rapidly with the tray—not in his hand.
"I am so sorry," he said, getting up in dismay after his rapid slide. "What a comfort I didn't knock you over; but it's so much the quickest way of bringing a tray down. I—— Have you ever tried it?"
If he had not been considerably agitated he would not have asked such a foolish question, and perhaps if Aunt Anne had really not got a severe fright she would not have been so much annoyed. But as it was, she stalked past him without saying a word and went up to her room.
"There!" he said ruefully, "I've done it, and I really did mean to be good."
The incident subdued them all considerably, and Barbara hoped that now they might get to the end of the visit without any further mishaps. But next morning at breakfast that hope was banished, for her aunt came downstairs with such an expression of annoyance upon her face, that every one knew something really unpleasant was coming.
"Is anything wrong?" Mrs. Britton asked anxiously. "Did you not sleep well—or—surely the children did not—annoy you in any way?" Visions of apple-pie beds were floating before her mind, although the children's looks of innocence somewhat reassured her on that point.
"Some one has annoyed me considerably," Aunt Anne said coldly, "by interfering with my clothes. When I came to put on my blue blouse this morning, I found that every other one of the silver buttons had been cut off."
There was a gasp of astonishment, and Barbara was just about to scorn the notion that any of the children could have been concerned in the matter, when her eyes fell on Dick's face. Miss Britton was looking in the same direction.
"I should think that little boy knows something about it," she said.
"Dick!" Mrs. Britton exclaimed, for he was usually the least apt of the three to get into mischief.