Mrs. Carleton was in her pleasant sitting-room and declared that she had been wishing for company, and held up some strips of red and white bunting.  “I am making a new flag for Fort Sumter,” she said.  “Perhaps you will help me sew on the stars, one for each State, you know.”

“Is there one for South Carolina?” asked Grace, as Mrs. Carleton found two small thimbles, which she said she had used when she was no older than Sylvia, and showed the girls how to sew the white stars securely on the blue.

“Yes, indeed!  One of the first stars on the flag was for South Carolina,” replied Mrs. Carleton, “and this very fort was named for a defender of America’s rights.”

While Grace and Sylvia were so pleasantly occupied Estralla had wandered out, crossed the bridge which connected the officers’ quarters with the fort, and now found herself near the landing-place, so that when Mrs. Carleton made the girls a cup of hot chocolate and looked about to give Estralla her share, the little colored girl was not to be seen.

“I’ll call her,” said Sylvia, and ran out on the veranda.

No response came to her calls, so she went down the steps and along the walk which led to the sand-bars, past the houses and barracks on Sullivan’s island.  No one was in sight whom she could ask if Estralla had passed that way.  She climbed a small sand-hill covered with stunted little trees and looked about, but could see no trace of the little darky.  It had not occurred to Sylvia that Estralla would go back to the fort.

“Oh, dear!  I wonder where she can be,” thought Sylvia, calling “Estralla!  Estralla!” and sure that if she was within hearing Estralla would instantly appear.  As Sylvia climbed over the sandy slope she saw here and there a small green vine with glossy leaves and a tiny yellow blossom, and resolved to gather a bunch to carry back to Mrs. Carleton.  “When I give them to her I’ll have a chance to say that Mr. Doane has the letter,” she thought.

Wandering on in search of the flowers, she went further and further from the fort, up one sand slope and clown another, almost forgetting her search for Estralla, and finally deciding that it was time to go back to Mrs. Carleton.

“Probably Estralla is there before this, and they will be looking for me,” she thought, and climbed another sandy slope, expecting to see the houses and barracks directly in front of her.  But she found herself facing the open sea, and look which way she would there was only shore, sand heaps and blue water.

But Sylvia was not at all alarmed.  She was sure that all she had to do was to follow the line of shore and she would soon be in sight of some familiar place, so she started singing to herself as she walked on: 

“De big bee flies high,
  De little bee makes de honey,”

and hoping that Mrs. Carleton would not think that she had been careless in losing her way.