“We’ll have a ride this afternoon, girls, if you are not too tired,” she said.

Grace and Sylvia promptly declared that they were not at all tired, and that a ride was just what they would like best.

The plantation’s “big house,” as the negroes called the owner’s home, was the largest house Sylvia had ever entered.  Its high piazza with the tall pillars was covered by a tangle of jessamine vines and climbing roses.  The front hall led straight through the house to another piazza, which looked out over beautiful gardens and a tiny lake.  Behind a thick hedge of privet were the cabins of the house servants.  The negroes who did the work on the plantation, caring for the horses and cows, and working in the cotton fields, lived at some distance from the “big” house.

Mrs. Hayes came out on the piazza to welcome the party.  She had come down from Charleston on the previous day.  It seemed to Sylvia she had never seen so many negroes before in all her life.  Neat colored maids were flitting about the house, colored men were at work in the garden, and colored children peered smilingly around the corner of the house.

A colored maid was told to look after Grace and Sylvia, and she led the way up the beautiful spiral staircase to a pleasant chamber overlooking the garden.  There were two small white beds, with a little mahogany light-stand between them.  On this stand stood a tall brass candlestick.  There were two dressing-tables, and two small bureaus, and a number of comfortable chintz-covered chairs.  The floor was of dark, shining wood, and beside each bed was a long, soft white rug.

Sylvia and Grace knew that this room had been arranged especially for any of Flora’s young friends whom she might entertain, and they both thought it was one of the nicest rooms that anyone could imagine.  The smiling colored maid brushed their hair, helped them into the fresh muslin dresses they had each brought, and when they were ready opened the door and followed them down the stairs where they found Flora awaiting them.

“Luncheon is all ready,” she said, and led the way into the dining-room, where Mrs. Hayes and Flora’s two older brothers, Ralph and Philip, were waiting for them.  The boys were tall, good-looking lads, and as they were in the uniform of the Military School of Charleston, of which they were pupils, Sylvia thought they must be quite grown up, although Ralph was only sixteen and his brother two years younger.  They had ridden out on horseback from Charleston, and had just arrived.

Flora introduced them to Sylvia, and Grace greeted them as old acquaintances.

“I suppose you girls are looking forward to the corn-shucking to-night?” Ralph asked, with his pleasant smile, as he held Sylvia’s chair for her to take her seat at the table, while Philip performed the same service for Grace.

“Oh, my dear boy!  You have betrayed Flora’s surprise,” said Mrs. Hayes.  “She had planned not to let the girls know about it until nightfall.”