"If it had not been for Estralla I don't know what would have happened to me last night," she thought. She wondered who had closed and fastened the front door, but dared not ask.
Grace and Flora were to come early that afternoon, as soon after school as possible, and Flora had sent Sylvia a note that she would bring her lace-work and give her a lesson. By noon Sylvia felt rested, and was looking eagerly forward to her friends' visit. She began to feel that she was a very fortunate little girl to have had the chance to do something that might help, as Mr. Doane had said, to give the black people their freedom. She only wished that she could tell her mother and father of the midnight journey.
"But I will ask Mrs. Carleton the next time I go to the fort to let me tell Mother," she resolved.
CHAPTER XIII
A HAPPY AFTERNOON
Grace was the first to arrive, and she declared that she wished that she was in Sylvia's place and need not go to school another day.
The two little friends stood at the window watching for Flora, and it was not long before they saw her coming up the walk, closely followed by her black "Mammy," who was carrying two baskets. One of these seemed very heavy.
"What can be in Mammy's basket, I wonder?" said Grace. "And, look, Sylvia! Flora isn't wearing the blue cockade! That's because she is coming to visit you. She had it on at school this morning."
Flora wore the same pretty velvet turban which she had worn on Sylvia's last day at school. She had on a cape of garnet-colored velvet, and as she came running into the room Sylvia looked at her with admiring eyes.
"You do look so pretty, Flora! And I am so glad to see you. Come up-stairs to my room and take off your things."