"I will give you the plate," said Mrs. Van Buren to Lucy; "for it was
your grandmother's plate, and her name was Lucy, and she would be glad,
were she living, to have you delight in a legend like that. It is good
to think that a loving Spirit hovers over us when evil draws near us--I
like the parable of the plate. I thank you for the story, Sky-High. Your
country has good stories."

"The story of the mandarin plate," said the little Chinaman, "is also
told in my country in a more tragic way; that the lovely girl is the
mandarin's daughter, and that he slays the lovers, and that it is their
souls that are seen flying away in the two birds. But it is the other
story that our scholars like."




VII.

SKY-HIGH'S KITE.


Charles and Lucy wished to give Sky-High a surprise. They had come into
possession of a kite which had been described to them as marvelous, and
they got their mother's permission to take the little Chinaman to
Franklin Park to see them fly it for the first time.

Franklin Park is not far from Milton Hill; and the street-cars readily
carry the crowds of children to the pleasure-grounds of the immense
common of woods, fields, great rocks and elms, and whole prairies of
grass. It is quite free--the dwellers of close Boston and its bowery