“No, but I could go sleighing,” responded Sylvia.

As they came in sight of Flora’s home they both exclaimed in surprise: 

“Why, they are all going away!  Look, Flora and her mother are in the carriage!” said Grace, “and there is Philip on horseback.”

The carriage had turned on to the street, and even as Grace spoke a curve in the road hid it from view.  Philip, evidently giving some directions to the negroes who were loading trunks and boxes into a cart, rode down the driveway just as Grace and Sylvia reached the entrance.

He greeted them smilingly, and stopped his horse to speak with them.

“It was all planned for us to go to the plantation before Flora got home last night,” he explained.  “Father thought it was best for the family to be out of the city.  You see, it’s getting time for Carolinians to take possession of the forts, and there may be trouble.  But the palmetto flag will soon float over Fort Sumter,” he added smilingly, and with a touch of his cap and a smiling good-bye he rode off.

Sylvia was sorry that Flora was going away, but that Philip should want the palmetto flag to take the place of the Stars and Stripes over Fort Sumter seemed a much greater misfortune.  “When he knows it stands for slavery,” she thought, wondering if he had entirely forgotten about Dinkie.

“I’ll have to run, or I’ll be late for school,” declared Grace.  “I’ll be all ready when you call,” and with a gay good-bye she was off down the street, leaving Sylvia and Estralla standing alone near the high wall which enclosed the garden of the Hayes house.

“Massa Robert Waite, he live right ‘roun’ de corner,” said Estralla, and the two girls turned down the street leading to the house of Estralla’s master.

Sylvia went up the flight of stone steps which led to Mr. Waite’s door a little fearfully.  A tall, good-natured colored man opened the door and asked her errand, and then led the way across the wide hall and rapped at a door.

“A little white missy to see you, Massa Robert,” he said, and in a moment Sylvia found herself standing before a smiling gentleman, whose red face and white whiskers made her think of the pictures of Santa Claus.

“Won’t you be seated, young lady?” he said, very politely, waving his hand toward a low cushioned chair, and bowing “as if I were really grown up,” thought Sylvia.

“I am Sylvia Fulton,” she said, wondering why her voice sounded so faint.

“Perhaps you are the daughter of Mr. John Fulton, who does me the favor of renting my house on the East Battery,” responded Mr. Waite, with another bow.

“Yes, sir,” said Sylvia meekly, wondering whether she would ever dare tell him her errand.  There was a little silence, and then Mr. Waite took a seat near his little visitor and said: 

“Let me see; is not your name in a song?  ‘Then to Sylvia let us sing,’” he hummed, beating time with his right hand.