"Are you going to ask your little friends to go out in the Butterfly this afternoon?" he asked. "If you want to go to the forts you must be on hand early."
"I'll ask them right away after breakfast, before they start for school," Sylvia promised eagerly. She was glad that she could go to the forts again, and tell Mrs. Carleton that she had given the letter to Mr. Doane. This filled her thoughts for the moment, so she quite forgot about her plan to employ Estralla, especially as her mother had decided that lessons would not begin until the following week.
It had seemed to Mrs. Fulton that her little daughter was tired, and not as well as usual, and she was glad that the sailing expedition would take her out for a long afternoon on the water.
Sylvia ate her breakfast hurriedly, and ran upstairs for her cape and hat, to find Estralla waiting just inside the door of her room.
"Wat yo' mammy say 'bout my bein' yo' maid?" questioned the little darky.
"Oh, it will be all right. I am going to ask Grace and Flora to go sailing this afternoon, and I'll keep on to Mr. Robert Waite's and have it all settled this morning," Sylvia replied, putting on her pretty new hat.
"You may come, too," she added.
"Yas, Missy. Wat yo' reckon Massa Robert gwine to say?" questioned
Estralla earnestly.
"I think I will take the money," Sylvia said, not answering Estralla's question; "then Mr. Waite will be sure that I can pay him."
Mrs. Fulton saw Sylvia, closely followed by Estralla, running across the garden toward the house where Grace Waite lived.