"What do you say to becoming a teacher yourself, Sylvia dear?" her mother asked, as they sat together in the big sunny room which overlooked the harbor.
"When I grow up?" asked Sylvia.
Mrs. Fulton smiled. Sylvia "grown up" seemed a long way in the future.
"No—that is too far away," she answered. "I was thinking that perhaps you would like to teach Estralla to read and write. You could begin to-morrow, if you wished."
"Yes, indeed! Mother, you think of everything," declared Sylvia. "Why, that will be better than going to school!"
"But we must not let your own studies be neglected," her mother reminded her, "so after you have given Estralla a morning lesson each day you and I will study together and keep up with Grace and Flora. By the way, Flora was here just before you and your father reached home; she was very sorry not to see you, and I have asked Flora and Grace to come to supper to-morrow night."
Sylvia began to think that a world without school was going to be a very pleasant world after all. She was sure that it would be great fun to teach Estralla, and to have lessons with her mother was even better than reciting to pretty Miss Rosalie; and, beside this, her best friends were coming to supper the next night, so she had many pleasant things to think of, which was exactly what her mother had planned. Her father had said that she might ask Grace to go sailing with them in the Butterfly in a day or two; and now Sylvia resolved to ask if she might not ask Flora as well, and perhaps Estralla could go, too. So it was no wonder that she ran up-stairs singing:
"There's a good time coming, It's almost here,"—
greatly to the satisfaction of her father and mother, who had feared that she would be very unhappy over the school affair. They were sorry it had happened, but they could not blame Sylvia.
"Oh, Missy Sylvia, here I is," and as Sylvia set her candle on the table, Estralla stood smiling before her.