"I know one thing, Sylvia. You wouldn't do anything mean, if you are a
Yankee," Grace declared warmly. "What's that noise?" she added quickly.
The room was shadowy in the gathering twilight, and the two little girls
had been sitting near the window. As Grace spoke they both turned
quickly, for there was a sudden noise of an overturned chair in the
further corner of the room, and they could see a dark figure sprawling
on the floor.
Before Sylvia could speak she heard the little wailing cry which
Estralla always gave when in trouble, and then: "Don't be skeered,
Missy! It's nobuddy. I jes' fell over your doll-ladies."
"Oh, Estralla! You haven't broken my dolls! What were you up here for,
anyway?" and Sylvia quite forgot all her plans to rescue Estralla as she
ran toward her.
The "doll-ladies," as the little darky girl had always called Sylvia's
two china dolls which sat in two small chairs in front of a doll's table
in one corner of the room, were both sprawling on the floor, their
chairs upset, and the little table with its tiny tea-set overturned.
Grace lit the candles on Sylvia's bureau, while Sylvia picked up her
treasured dolls, "Molly" and "Polly," which her Grandmother Fulton had
sent her on her last birthday.
"I wuz up here, jest a-sittin' an' a-lookin' at 'em, Missy," wailed
Estralla. "I never layed hand on 'em. An' when you an' Missy Grace comes
in I da'sent move. An' then when I does move I tumbles over. I 'spec'
now I'll get whipped.
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