you could look out on the broad
Ohio, a river which would be very beautiful, if its yellow waters were
only once settled. As far as the eye could see, the earth was one vast
plain, and, in order to touch it, the sky seemed to stoop very low;
whereas, in New England, the gray-headed mountains appear to go up part
way to meet the sky.

One fine evening in May, brown-eyed Horace and blue-eyed Grace stood on
the balcony, leaning against the iron railing, watching the stars, and
chatting together.

One thing is very sure: they never dreamed that from this evening their
sayings and doings--particularly Horace's--were to be printed in a book.
If any one had whispered such a thing, how dumb Horace would have grown,
his chin snuggling down into a hollow place in his neck! and how
nervously Grace would have laughed! walking about very fast, and
saying,--

"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?"

"O, _that's_ no account! I did it climbin' trees. Barby tried to scour
it off, but