Not long after Bruno's self-imposed night watch we found ourselves settled on our own estate, ready to carry out our plans for the future. Briefly they were as follows. We had intended to make an orange-grove, and while it was coming to maturity, we expected to raise early vegetables to ship to northern markets. We brought with us only money enough to make our place and live for a year: by that time we had fully expected to have returns from vegetable shipments which would tide us over till another crop. We had plenty of faith and courage, and were troubled by no doubts as to the feasibility of our plans. Nor need we have been, if only our land had contained the proper elements for vegetable growing. It was good enough orange land, but it would be a long time before we could depend on oranges for an income.

All this time we had been learning many things, taking care, as we began to understand the situation, to go to practical doers for advice instead of to visionary talkers.

There began to be serious consultations in our little home circle. The year was drawing to a close, and our whole crop of vegetables would not have filled a two-quart measure. We had gone on with our planting, even after we felt it to be hopeless, because we did not dare to stop and listen to our fears. It is not strange that we felt depressed and disappointed. We could see that our plans could easily have been carried out, had we only known just what sort of land to select. The whole State was before us to choose from, but we had been misled through the romances of a dreamer of dreams. All we had to show for our money, time, and labor was a small house surrounded by trees so young that they were at least five years from yielding us an income, and there was no more money for experiments.

For a while we felt rather bitter towards our misleading adviser, but I know now that we were wrong to feel so. A man can give only what he has. "Out of the fulness of the heart the mouth speaketh." A dreamer of dreams has only visions to offer to his followers, surely landing them either in the briers of difficulty or the mires of discouragement.One day Julius returned from the nearest large town, where he had been for supplies, with an unusually thoughtful countenance. As soon as his purchases were unloaded and the horse had been attended to, he came in and, drawing a chair beside my work-table, opened the conversation with these memorable words:

"Judith, how would you like to go up to Lemonville to live?"

"What makes you ask?" questioned I. "It depends altogether on the circumstances how I'd like to live there."

"Well, Hawkes bantered me to-day to come up and keep his books for him, and I have been considering it all the way home. It looks like a way out, and I'll declare I don't see any other!"

"Go back to office work!" I exclaimed; "I thought you were done with that sort of thing!"

"I thought so, too; but after a year of this sort of thing, it begins to look quite different."

We sat up late, discussing this plan in all its bearings. Bruno seemed to know that it was a crisis in our affairs, and sat on end facing us, wrinkling his brows and looking from one to the other as each spoke. We finally decided that Julius was to go back to town in a day or two, and investigate further.When Julius returned from Lemonville three days later, he brought us the news that he had promised to give the position a trial, and that he had engaged temporary quarters for us in a new house near the office. Moreover, we were to move up there the following week, as Mr. Hawkes was impatient for his help.

While we felt relieved at this decision, there was still something very sad about the breaking up. We had builded so many hopes into our pine-woods home, which had seemed to us to be guarded by a "standing army" of giants carrying silver banners, especially imposing on moonlight nights when the wind kept the banners of moss swaying under the immense pine-trees.

We had seen it in imagination blossoming as the rose, a quiet little nest, far from the madding crowd. And now to abandon it at the beginning and go back to village life,—it was leaving poetry for the flattest of prose.

The first step towards breaking up was to dispose of our fowls. This was soon arranged, and when the cart came to carry them off, Bruno watched the loading of them with the keenest interest, turning his head sideways, with alert ears, and catching his lip between his side-teeth when a hen squawked, as was his way when nervous. At last they were all in the coop. The driver mounted to his seat, and started off. Bruno trotted along after him, evidently not understanding that they were no longer our chickens. He thought it was the beginning of the move he had heard us discuss. He followed along for perhaps a quarter of a mile. All at once he stopped and looked back; he saw us standing and looking after him. It was a dilemma. He looked after the receding wagon, then back at us, then at the wagon again. Then he turned and galloped back, stomach to earth, and bounded up to us, yelping and panting, while we explained that they were not our chickens any more; they were sold, and had gone away to live in another home.

The poultry disposed of, we began hurriedly to make ready for our own departure. It took a whole long day to pack our books, but we soon stowed our other things, and inside of the agreed time we were transferred and settled in the three rooms Julius had engaged.

There was a sitting-room below, which we used also as a dining-room, with a small kitchen behind it. Over the sitting-room we had a large chamber. The front windows of this room gave on the sloping roof which covered a lower porch. This seemed to meet Bruno's views; he at once sprang through one of the windows, and took possession of it as a lounging-place—airy and cool.

Again and again friends we had made in our sylvan retreat, who came up to town to visit us, said,—

"I found where you lived by seeing your dog on the porch-roof."

The house stood on rising ground and could be seen from almost any part of the village; so we found Bruno quite useful as a door-plate in a town where there were as yet no street names nor numbers.

We do not like living in the homes of other people, so as soon as possible we made arrangements for two town lots, and put up a little cottage.