e gorgeous with colour and gilding,
could have half the enjoyment of Robert from the moment he went to the
cooper's to ask for an old gird or hoop, to the moment when he said
'Noo, Shargar!' and the kite rose slowly from the depth of the aerial
flood. The hoop was carefully examined, the best portion cut away from
it, that pared to a light strength, its ends confined to the proper
curve by a string, and then away went Robert to the wright's shop. There
a slip of wood, of proper length and thickness, was readily granted to
his request, free as the daisies of the field. Oh! those horrid town
conditions, where nothing is given for the asking, but all sold for
money! In Robert's kite the only thing that cost money was the string to
fly it with, and that the grandmother willingly provided, for not
even her ingenuity could discover any evil, direct or implicated, in
kite-flying. Indeed, I believe the old lady felt not a little sympathy
with the exultation of the boy when he saw his kite far aloft,
diminished to a speck in the vast blue; a sympathy, it may be, rooted in
the religious aspirations which she did so much at once to rouse and to
suppress in the bosom of her grandchild. But I have not yet reached the
kite-flying, for I have said nothing of the kite's tail, for the sake of
which principally I began to describe the process of its growth.

As soon as the body of the dragon was completed, Robert attached to its
spine the string which was to take the place of its caudal elongation,
and at a proper distance from the body joined to the string the first
of the cross-pieces of folded paper which in this animal represent the
continued vertebral processes. Every morning, the moment he issued from
his chamber, he proceeded to the garret where the monster lay, to add
yet another joint to his tail, until at length the day should arrive
when, the lessons over for a blessed eternity of five or six weeks, he
would tip the whole with a piece of wood, to which grass, quantum suff.,
might be added from the happy fields.

Upon this occasion the dragon was a monster one. With a little help
from Shargar, he had laid the skeleton of a six-foot specimen, and had
carried the body to a satisfactory completion.

The tail was still growing, having as yet only sixteen joints, when Mr.
Lammie called with an invitation for the boys to spend their holidays
with him. It was fortunate for Robert that he was in the room when Mr.
Lammie presented his