Of how many pleasures does pocket-money deprive the unfortunate possessor! What is the going into a shop and buying what you want, compared with the gentle delight of hours and days filled with gaining effort after the attainment of your end?
Never boy that bought his kite, even if the adornment thereafter lay in his own hands, and the pictures were 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.