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?" "O, _that's_ no account! I did it climbin' trees. Barby tried to scour it off, but it sticks. I don't care--soldiers' hands ain't white, are they, Pincher?" The pretty dog at Horace's feet shook his ears, meaning to say,-- "I should think not, little master; soldiers have very dirty hands, if you say so." "Come," said Grace, who was tired of gazing at the far-off star-land; "let's go down and see if Barbara hasn't made that candy: she said she'd be ready in half an hour." They went into the library, which opened upon the balcony, through the passage, down the front stairs, and into the kitchen, Pincher following close at their heels. It was a very tidy kitchen, whose white floor was scoured every day with a scrubbing-brush. Bright tin pans were shining upon the walls, and in one corner stood a highly polished cooking-stove, over which Barbara Kinckle, a rosy-cheeked German girl, was stooping to watch a kettle of boiling molasses. Every now and then she raised the spoon with which she was stirring it, and let the half-made candy drip back into the kettle in ropy streams. It looked very tempting, and gave out a delicious odor. Perhaps it was not strange that the children thought they were kept waiting a long while. "Look here, Grace," muttered Horace, loud enough for Barbara to hear; "don't you think she's just the slowest kind?" "It'll sugar off," said Grace, calmly, as if she had made up her mind for the worst; "don't you know how it sugared off once when ma was making it, and let the fire go 'most out'?" "Now just hear them childers," said good-natured Barbara; "where's the little boy and girl that wasn't to speak to me one word, if I biled 'em some candies?"