"Oh! What will we do?" half sobbed Sylvia, who was now very tired, and almost too sleepy to think of anything.
"We cyan't get in de back door. My mammy she'd wake up if a rabbit run twixt her cabin an' de kitchen," Estralla whispered back. "I 'spec's I'll hev' to climb up to de winder ober de porch, and comes down and let you in."
"Oh! Can you, Estralla?"
Sylvia's voice was very near to tears. She had forgotten all about the importance of the message she had safely delivered. All she wanted now was to be inside this dear safe house where her mother and father were sleeping, not knowing that their little girl, cold and sleepy, was shut out.
"I 'spec's I can," Estralla answered. "You jes' stay quiet, an' in 'bout four shakes of a lamb's tail I'se gwine to open de door, an' in yo' walks."
There was a little scrambling noise among the stout vines which ran up the pillars of the porch as Estralla started to carry out her plan. A cat, or a fluttering bird, would have hardly made more commotion. Sylvia listened eagerly. Suppose the porch window was fastened? she thought fearfully. It seemed a very long time before the front door opened, and Estralla reached out and clutched at the brown cape.
Noiselessly they crept up the stairs, Estralla leading the way. It was she who opened the door of Sylvia's room, and then with a whispered "Yo'se all right now, Missy," closed it behind her.
Sylvia hung up the brown cape in the closet, and slipped off her dress. She was soon in bed and fast asleep, and it was late the next morning before she awoke—so late that her father had breakfasted and gone to his warehouse; Estralla had been sent on an errand, and Mrs. Fulton decided that Sylvia should have a holiday.
"You seem tired, dear child," she said a little anxiously, as Sylvia said that she did not want to go to walk; that she had rather sit still.
"I guess I am tired," acknowledged the little girl, and was quite content to sit by the window with a story-book, instead of giving Estralla a lesson.