limbs--frondes novas et non sua poma. A bitter thing indeed!
Of those pretty silken threads that knit humanity together, high
and low, past and present, none is tougher, more pervading, or
more iridescent, than the honest, simple pleasure of new clothes.

It tugs at the man as it tugs at the woman; the smirk of the
well-fitted prince is no different from the smirk of the Sunday-
clad peasant; and the veins of the elders tingle with the same
thrill that sets their fresh-frocked grandchildren skipping.
Never trust people who pretend that they have no joy in their new
clothes.

Let not our souls be wrung, however, at contemplation of the
luckless urchin cut off by parental penury from the rapture
of new clothes. Just as the heroes of his dreams are his
immediate seniors, so his heroes' clothes share the glamour, and
the reversion of them carries a high privilege--a special thing
not sold by Swears and Wells. The sword of Galahad--and of many
another hero--arrived on the scene already hoary with history,
and the boy rather prefers his trousers to be legendary, famous,
haloed by his hero's renown--even though the nap may have
altogether vanished in the process.

But, putting clothes aside, there are other matters in which this
reversed heirship comes into play. Take the case of Toys. It is
hardly right or fitting--and in this the child quite acquiesces--
that as he approaches the reverend period of nine or say ten
years, he should still be the unabashed and proclaimed possessor
of a hoop and a Noah's Ark. The child will quite see the
reasonableness of this, and, the goal of his ambition being now a