Sherwood Forest suddenly began to boom, and houses were in demand. My architect friend threatened me with eviction, and to avert the calamity I signed a contract of purchase, which bound me and my heirs and assigns forever to certain weekly payments; and, blithe opportunist that I am, I based a chapter on this circumstance, with the caption “Five Dollars a Month for Life.” I wrote from notes supplied by Olive a dissertation on “The Pursuit of the Lemon”--suggested by an adventure of her own in search of the fruit of the _citrus limonum_ for use in garnishing a plate of canned salmon for Sunday evening tea. Inspired by the tender, wistful autumn days I wrote verses laboriously, and boldly hung them in the lane in the hope of arresting my Rosalind’s eye. One of these (tacked to a tree in a path by the lake) I here insert to illustrate the plight to which she had brought me: “At eve a line of golden light Hung low along the west; The first red maple bough shone bright Upon the woodland’s breast. The wind blew keen across the lake, A wave mourned on the shore; Earth knew an instant some heartache Unknown to earth before. The wandering ghosts of summers gone Watched shore and wood and skies; The night fell like a shadow drawn Across your violet eyes.” V Olive suffered my rhyming with the same composure with which she met the unpreluded passing of a maid of all work, or the ill-natured smoking of the furnace on the first day it was fired. She preferred philosophy to poetry, and borrowed Nietzsche from the branch library. She persuaded me that the ladies of the bungalows are all practical persons, and so far as I am concerned, Olive fixed the type. It had seemed to me, as I viewed her comings and goings at long range, that she commanded infinite leisure; and yet her hours were crowded with activities. I learned from her that cooks with diplomas are beyond the purses of most bungalow housekeepers; and as Olive’s brother’s digestive apparatus was most delicate she assumed the responsibility of composing cakes and pastries for his pleasure. With tea (and we indulged in much teaing) she gave me golden sponge-cake of her own making which could not have failed to delight the severest Olympian critic. Her sand tarts established a new standard for that most delectable item of the cook-book. She ironed with her own hands the baby’s more fragile frocks. Nor did such manual employments interfere in any way whatever with the delicacy of her touch upon the piano. She confided to me that she made a practice of reviewing French verbs at the ironing-board with a grammar propped before her. She belonged to a club which was studying Carlyle’s _French Revolution_, and she was secretary of a musical society--formed exclusively of the mistresses of bungalows, who had nobly resolved to devote the winter to the study of the works of John Sebastian Bach.