The lockets were purchased, and Mr. Waite took Sylvia to a studio to sit for the pictures for the lockets. There was enough money left to purchase a fine doll for Estralla, and Mr. Waite gave her a box filled with candy of many kinds, shapes and flavors. All these things occupied her thoughts so pleasantly that for a time she quite forgot the disturbance in the streets, and all the trouble that seemed so near to her and to her Charleston friends.
"I will call to-morrow," said Mr. Waite, as he left the little girl at her own door. "And tell your father that he had best not go on the streets unless he goes with my brother or myself."
This last message made Sylvia very sober. She came into the sitting-room holding her packages, and found her mother and Mrs. Carleton busy with their sewing, while her father was at his desk writing. She repeated Mr. Waite's message, and her father nodded silently.
Then Sylvia told them that the lockets and pictures would be ready the following day. "And I have a doll for Estralla," she concluded.
"Why not make the doll a fine dress and mantle?" suggested Mrs. Carleton. "Come up to my room and I will help you," and Sylvia agreed smilingly.
Mrs. Carleton had a roll of crimson silk in her work-bag and before supper time the new doll was dressed and ready for Estralla.
"This is for you, Estralla," Sylvia said, when Estralla came up to her room, as she often did in the late afternoon.
"Fer me, Missy! He, he, I knows w'en you's jokin'; but 'tis a fine lady doll," responded the little girl, wishing with all her heart that the beautiful doll in the gorgeous silken dress which Sylvia was holding toward her might really be hers.
"Take it, Estralla! It is for you. Truly it is," and Sylvia's tone was so serious that Estralla came slowly forward and took the doll.
For a moment the two little girls stood looking at each other in silence, Sylvia smiling, but Estralla with a surprised, half-anxious expression.