"O, yes," chimed in Cassy, beginning to grow indignant, "only because he's a boy!"
"And he'll come to me, Horace will, just as likely as not, Cassy, and
I'll have to tell him which way to vote."
The girls looked rather scornful as they pictured to themselves an imaginary Horace, tall and twenty-one, anxiously inquiring of his sister what ticket he should throw into the ballot-box.
"Now, you see," said Grace, "it's very absurd to make a fuss that way over boys. They feel it. It sets them up on a throne."
"O, yes, I reckon it does, Gracie. Isn't it right funny now to look at boys, and see the airs they put on?"
"It is so," said Grace, sweeping back her curls with a gesture of disdain. "There's their secret societies, Cassy."
"Yes, Gracie, and I don't approve of any such goings on. Johnny looks so wise and important! How I wish I knew what it's all about!"
"Why, Cassy, I wouldn't know if I could. I'd scorn to care."
"So would I scorn to care," replied Cassy, quickly. "O, of course!
It's of no account, you might know."
"What vexes me, Cassy, is the way they look down on us girls, and boast that they can keep secrets and we can't, when it's no such a thing, Cassy Hallock, as you and I very well know—we that have kept secrets for years and years, and never, never told, and never will to our dying days!"