What passed in that little room is not to be recorded except in the hearts of those who suffered and endured much for love's sake. Enough for us to know that soon the wan shadow of a man came forth, leaning on the arm that never failed him, to be welcomed and cherished by the children, who never forgot the experiences of that time. "Hope" was the watchword now; and, while the last logs blazed on the hearth, the last bread and apples covered the table, the new commander, with recovered courage, said to her husband,-- "Leave all to God--and me. He has done his part; now I will do mine." "But we have no money, dear." "Yes, we have. I sold all we could spare, and have enough to take us away from this snow-bank." "Where can we go?" "I have engaged four rooms at our good neighbor, Lovejoy's. There we can live cheaply till spring. Then for new plans and a home of our own, please God." "But, Hope, your little store won't last long, and we have no friends." "I can sew and you can chop wood. Lovejoy offers you the same pay as he gives his other men; my old friend, Mrs. Truman, will send me all the work I want; and my blessed brother stands by us to the end. Cheer up, dear heart, for while there is work and love in the world we shall not suffer." "And while I have my good angel Hope, I shall not despair, even if I wait another thirty years before I step beyond the circle of the sacred little world in which I still have a place to fill." So one bleak December day, with their few possessions piled on an ox-sled, the rosy children perched atop, and the parents trudging arm in arm behind, the exiles left their Eden and faced the world again. "Ah, me! my happy dream. How much I leave behind that never can be mine again," said Abel, looking back at the lost Paradise, lying white and chill in its shroud of snow. "Yes, dear; but how much we bring away," answered brave-hearted Hope, glancing from husband to children. "Poor Fruitlands! The name was as great a failure as the rest!" continued Abel, with a sigh, as a frostbitten apple fell from a leafless bough at his feet. But the sigh changed to a smile as his wife added, in a half-tender, half-satirical tone,-- "Don't you think Apple Slump would be a better name for it, dear?" THE ROMANCE OF A SUMMER DAY. "What shall we do about Rose? We have tried Saratoga, and that failed to cheer her up; we tried the sea-shore, and that failed; now we have tried the mountains, and they are going to fail, like the rest. See if your woman's wit can't devise something to help the child, Milly." "Time and tenderness will work the cure; and she will be all the better for this experience, I hope." "So do I. But I don't pretend to understand these nervous ailments; so, if air, exercise, and change of scene don't cure the vapors, I give it up. Girls didn't have such worries in my day." And the old gentleman shook his head, as if modern ills perplexed him very much.