"Now, Sylvia, own up that
you think Charleston is nicer than Boston. Why, it is all ice and snow
and cold weather up there, and here it is warm and pleasant. You
couldn't go sailing if you were in Boston to-day," she added laughingly.
"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.
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