"Everything is better for boys than for girls. All the stories are written for them; they can ride, and drive, and play ball, and swim, and skate, and—"
"Lil! Lillie!" called a soft sweet voice, "are you in the sun? Your complexion will be ruined."
"There! didn't I say so?" was the somewhat incoherent reply. "Isn't it always the way? See how we are watched: don't go in the sun, you'll be burned; don't do this, don't do that—all because you're a girl. I'm tired of it.—Aunt Kit, I'm not in the sun.—I wish I was," was added sotto voce.
"Country girls' mothers are not so particular," said Ollie. "Look at those Pokeby girls in their calicoes; they climb trees like monkeys, and they have lots of good times."
"Let's go over and see them; it is not far. Come, Ollie."
"In my new dotted mull and silk stockings?" cried Ollie, in amazement. "Aunt Kit won't let us."
"See if she don't;" and Lil bounced out of the hammock, and into the house, where in the cool darkness of a shaded parlor sat a slender lady, with a pile of flosses in her lap, and a graceful basket in her hands, which she was ornamenting. "Aunt Kit, I have come to ask a favor. We are just bored to death doing nothing."
"Lil, how can you use such an expression? I am shocked. You are really getting very careless in your use of words."
"Well, then, excuse me, but it's the truth all the same. Ollie and I want some fun; the boys wouldn't take us fishing, and now I want you to let us put on some old duds and go over to the Pokebys'. We will promise to come home to tea, we will be as prim as prunes afterward, and I'll play two extra exercises to-morrow, and learn three pages of French. Now you can't say no; there's every reason for saying yes, and you will have a nice quiet time all day, without being bothered. Please—that's a darling!" and she smothered her retreating relative with kisses.
After some hesitation, and after many protestations that they would remember every charge given them, the girls received permission to go to the farm.