"Then you must be a half-eagle, Cassy. Why, you don't mind the weather, or any of the bothers! You never fly out of patience! O, Cassy Hallock, I think you're splendid!" As this was not the first time Cassy had been eulogized as "splendid," she was by no means astonished, but continued to move quietly along, with her usual composure. Grace Clifford seemed a little nervous. Every now and then she would drop her friend's hand, and gather a few blades of grass, or pick up a pebble, then seize Cassy's hand again, and walk on. Cassy watched her companion with some curiosity. "Now, Gracie Clifford," said she at last, "you're keeping something to yourself; I just know you are." "What if I am?" said Grace, tossing an orange into the air and catching it as it fell; "I needn't tell you every single thing, Cassy!" "Yes, you must, Gracie Clifford," was the firm reply. "I'm your dearest friend, and am I not going off next week visiting?" "Well, I've nothing to tell, any way, but just thoughts," said Grace, pocketing her orange, and taking Cassy's hand again, while they each hopped on one foot like happy little robins. "I've a great many thoughts whizzing in my mind all the time, Cassy. I've been thinking lately about-- I mean, I've been wishing, for ages and ages, that I'd been born a boy; but it's silly, and so I never say it." "Why, Gracie Clifford, I've heard you say it five hundred times! I'd as soon be a girl, because I _am_, and there's the end of it." "But to grow up and be a woman!" said Grace, with a shudder. "Do you ever think of the wrinkles, and the cross kitchen girls, and the children that have to cut their teeth? And you can't sleep nights; and then they won't let you vote!" "I don't want to vote, Gracie; what would _I_ vote for?" "O, child! For union and liberty, and all the good things. Don't you go to encouraging slavery, Cassy!" "No," laughed Cassy, "I won't." "And don't let such swearing people as Mr. Blake go to Congress. But there, _you_ can't help it, Cassy; _you_ never'll vote, neither will I. And there's Horace, --what do you suppose that boy cares about politics? But _he'll_ vote fast enough." "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."