CHAPTER XXIV.
MAY BE SO.
"NEXT time you go out, you'll buy me a wagon, won't you, mother ?" said my little boy to me, one day.
I didn't want to say "no," and destroy his happy feelings; and I was not prepared to say "yes;" and so I gave the evasive reply so often used under such circumstances, "May be so," and which was meant rather as a negative than an affirmative.

The child was satisfied; for he gave my words the meaning he wished them to have.

In a little while after, I had forgotten all about it.

Not so my boy.

To him the "May be so" was "yes," and he set his heart, confidently, on receiving the wagon the next time I should go out.