which the good-natured Caleb had busied himself for the younger ones of that family in which he had found the fatal ideal of his trite life. One by one were these lugged forth from their dusty slumber-profane hands struggling for the first right of appropriation. And now, revealed against the wall, glared upon the startled violators of the sanctuary, with glassy eyes and horrent visage, a grim monster. They huddled back one upon the other, pale and breathless, till the eldest, seeing that the creature moved not, took heart, approached on tip-toe-twice receded, and twice again advanced, and finally drew out, daubed, painted, and tricked forth in the semblance of a griffin, a gigantic kite. The children, alas! were not old and wise enough to knew all the dormant value of that imprisoned aeronaut, which had cost Caleb many a dull evening’s labour--the intended gift to the false one’s favourite brother. But they guessed that it was a thing or spirit appertaining of right to them; and they resolved, after mature consultation, to impart the secret of their discovery to an old wooden-legged villager, who had served in the army, who was the idol of all the children of the place, and who, they firmly believed, knew everything under the sun, except the mystical arts of reading and writing. Accordingly, having seen that the coast was clear--for they considered their parents (as the children of the hard-working often do) the natural foes to amusement--they carried the monster into an old outhouse, and ran to the veteran to beg him to come up slyly and inspect its properties. Three months after this memorable event, arrived the new pastor--a slim, prim, orderly, and starch young man, framed by nature and trained by practice to bear a great deal of solitude and starving. Two loving couples had waited to be married till his Reverence should arrive. The ceremony performed, where was the registry-book? The vestry was searched--the church-wardens interrogated; the gay clerk, who, on the demise of his deaf predecessor, had come into office a little before Caleb’s last illness, had a dim recollection of having taken the registry up to Mr. Price at the time the vestry-room was whitewashed. The house was searched--the cupboard, the mysterious cupboard, was explored. “Here it is, sir!” cried the clerk; and he pounced upon a pale parchment volume. The thin clergyman opened it, and recoiled in dismay--more than three-fourths of the leaves had been torn out. “It is the moths, sir,” said the gardener’s wife, who had not yet removed from the house. The clergyman looked round; one of the children was trembling. “What have you done to this book, little one?” “That book?--the--hi!--hi!--” “Speak the truth, and you sha’n’t be punished.” “I did not know it was any harm--hi!--hi!--” “Well, and--” “And old Ben helped us.” “Well?” “And--and--and--hi!--hi!--The tail of the kite, sir!--” “Where is the kite?”