e to think them over, there is something
against every one; I mean something one would not like to do or to
suffer. But,--on the whole,--I _think_ I would be Elizabeth of Hungary."

"Our Lady of the Roses? Well, she was lovely, though I should be sorry
to marry her husband. The story would have been somewhat different if I
had; but I am not a saint. Peggy, your turn!"

"This man we are reading about!" said Peggy, decidedly. "La Salle!"

"Toots!"

"Bell, you know I never _can_ decide between Shakespeare and Raphael. I
have to be both; they lived quite far enough apart for separate
incarnations."

"Greedy, grasping girl!" said Bell. "Kitty, who are you?"

"Jim Hawkins!" said Kitty, promptly.

"No fiction allowed this time, Missy, only history!"

"Oh, dear! well, then--Francis Drake!"

"Bound to have a pirate, aren't you, Kitty?" said Gertrude,
mischievously.

"He wasn't a pirate!" cried Kitty, indignantly. "He was a great hero."

"_L'un n'empechait pas l'autre_, in those days!" said Bell.

"Well, now for yourself, Bell!" said Margaret. "It is your turn."

"Oh, I didn't need any two minutes," said Bell. "I am always William the
Silent. I should be Beethoven if it were not for the deafness, but that
I could not have borne."

"You all want to be men, don't you?" observed Margaret, thoughtfully.

"Why--yes, so we do! you are the only one who chose a woman."

"Everybody would be a man if they could!" cried Peggy, throwing grammar
to the winds, as she was apt to do when excited.

"No, indeed, everybody would not!" cried Margaret, her soft eyes
lighting up. "Nothing would induce me to be a man."

"I don't think you would make a very good one, to be sure!" said Peggy,
looking affectionately at her cousin. "But I bet--I mean wager--you told
me I might say 'wager,' Margaret!--that none of the other girls would
hesitate a minute if they had the chance. I wouldn't! Think of it! No
petticoats, no fuss, no having to remember to do this, and not to do
that; and no hairpins, or gloves, or best hats--"

"Ah!" said Bell; "that is only the smallest part, Peggy. I don't mind
the hairpin part--though of course it is a joy to get out here and
dispense with them--but still, that is only a trifle. The thing I think
about is the freedom, the strength, the power to go right ahead and _do_
things!" and, as she spoke, Bell threw her head back and stretched her
arms abroad with a vigorous gesture. "Of course we girls are all wel