"That is the shape in which you are accustomed to them, Malcolm; but to preserve a thing means to keep it from decay, and salt and vinegar will do this as well as sugar. Preserves of this kind are what _you_ call 'puckery.'--As to the color, Clara, 'olive-green' is a color by itself, because of its peculiar tint. It is a gray green instead of a blue or yellow green, and it has a very dull effect. The fruit is produced only once in two years, and in bearing-season the tree is loaded with white blossoms that drop to the ground like flakes of snow. It is said that not one in a hundred of these numerous flowers becomes an olive. Here," continued Miss Harson, pointing to a page of a book in her hand, "is a representation of an olive-branch with some of the plum-shaped fruit. The branch, you see, is hard and stiff-looking."