"O, it's too bad, to put Horace and me in a book! I say it's too bad! Tell them to wait till my hair is curled, and I have my new pink dress on! And tell them to make Horace talk better! He plays so much with the Dutch boys. O, Horace isn't fit to print!"
This is what she might have said if she had thought of being "put in a book;" but as she knew nothing at all about it, she only stood very quietly leaning against the balcony-railing, and looking up at the evening sky, merry with stars.
"What a shiny night, Horace! What do the stars look like? Is it diamond rings?"
"I'll tell you, Gracie; it's cigars they look like—just the ends of cigars when somebody is smoking."
At that moment the cluster called the "Seven Sisters" was drowned in a soft, white cloud.
"Look," said Grace; "there are some little twinkles gone to sleep, all tucked up in a coverlet. I don't see what makes you think of dirty cigars! They look to me like little specks of gold harps ever so far off, so you can't hear the music. O, Horace, don't you want to be an angel, and play on a beautiful harp?"
"I don't know," said her brother, knitting his brows, and thinking a moment; "when I can't live any longer, you know, then I'd like to go up to heaven; but now, I'd a heap sooner be a soldier!"
"O, Horace, you'd ought to rather be an angel! Besides, you're too little for a soldier!"
"But I grow. Just look at my hands; they're bigger than yours, this minute!"
"Why, Horace Clifford, what makes them so black?"