He replied: "Yes, yes, that's just it.

My share of the interest on that debt this winter was just seventy-five cents, and if it wasn't for that, we would have had enough to get them; as it is, we are going to cut out meat for a week--we figured it all out just now--and get them anyway.

She's down at the store buying them." "Buying what ?" asked Barclay.
The general's face lighted up again with a grin, and he replied: "Now laugh--dog-gone you--buying flower seeds!" They heard a step at the bottom of the stairs, and the general strode to the door, opened it, and called down, "All right, Lucy--I'm coming," and buttoning up his coat, he whisked himself from the room, and Barclay, looking out of the window, watched the two forms as they disappeared in the dusk.

But appearances are so deceptive.

The truth is that what he saw was not there at all, but only appeared on his retina; the two forms that he seemed to see were not shivering through the twilight, but were walking among dahlias and coxcombs and four-o'clocks and petunias and poppies and hollyhocks on a wide lawn whereon newly set elm trees were fluttering their faint green foliage in the summer breeze.