“My landy!” whispered Estralla, peering in from the balcony window.  “Your mammy’s a angel.  An’ so is you, Missy.  I was gwine tell her the trufe if she’d scolded, I su’ly was.  Landy!  I’d a sight ruther be whipped than have you scolded, Missy.”

Sylvia looked at her in astonishment.  Estralla, with round serious eyes, stood gazing at her as if she was ready to do anything that Sylvia could possibly ask.

“Run.  It’s all right,” said Sylvia with a little smile, and Estralla, with a backward look over her shoulder, went slowly out of the room.

“I’m gwine to recollect this jes’ as long as I live,” Estralla whispered as she made her way back to the kitchen.  “Nobuddy ever cared if I was whipped before, or if I wasn’t whipped.  An’ I’ll do somethin’ fer Missy sometime, I will.  An’ she give me dis fine dress too.”  She bent over and smoothed out one of the little ruffles, and chuckled happily.

Her mammy was busy preparing breakfast when Estralla slid quietly into the kitchen.  When she did look around and saw the child wearing the pink dress she nearly dropped the dish of hot bacon which Jennie was waiting to take to the dining-room.

“Wha’ on earth did you get you’ pink dress?  Did Missy give it to you?  Well, you step out to the cabin and take it off.  This minute!  Put you’ blue frock right on.  Like as not her mammy won’t let you keep it,” and Aunt Connie hurried Jennie off to the dining-room with the breakfast tray.

Estralla did not know what to do.  Her blue dress was hung over a syringa bush behind the cabin.  And at the dreadful thought that Mrs. Fulton might take away the pink dress she began to cry.

“Missy Sylvia said ’twas faded.  She said to put it on,” whimpered Estralla.

Aunt Connie began to be more hopeful.  If the dress was faded—­and she turned and looked at it more closely.

“Well, honey, ‘tis faded.  An’ I guess Missy Sylvia’s mammy won’ take it back.  An’ it’s the Sabbath day, so you jes’ wear it,” she said, patting the little woolly head.  “Mammy’s glad to have you dressed up; but you be mighty keerful.”

“Yas, Mammy.  I jes’ love Missy Sylvia,” replied the little girl, now all smiles, and forgetting how nearly she had come to serious trouble.

Nothing more was said to Sylvia about the broken pitcher; but when Jennie put the room in order, and brought down the broken pieces, Aunt Connie exclaimed:  “Good massy!  It’s a good thing my Estralla didn’t do that!  I’d ‘a’ cuffed her well, I su’ly would.”

Sylvia did not think to tell her mother about the gift of the pink dress to Estralla.  She did not feel quite happy that she had not explained the broken pitcher to her mother; but she had promised Estralla that she would not tell, and Sylvia knew that a promise was a very serious thing, something not to be easily forgotten.

She did not see Estralla again that day, and Jennie brought the hot water as usual the next morning.