"The frame really is sound," said the Invalid, examining with a critical
eye.

"Of course it is," said Hope. "Now let us go into the kitchen. If that
is only half as good I shall be quite satisfied."

The kitchen-door, which was simply an old packing-box cover, with the
address outside by way of doorplate, was a veritable "fat man's misery,"
but as none of the party were particularly fat we all managed to squeeze
through.

"Two rooms!" exclaimed Hope. "How enchanting! I had no idea that there
was more than one. What a nice little dining-room this will make! There
is just room enough."

"'Us four and no more,'" quoted Merry. "But where will the handmaiden
sleep?"

"The kitchen is large," said the Pessimist, bowing his head to pass into
the next room: "it will only be making one more curtain, Merry, and she
can have this corner."

"He is converted! he really is converted!" cried Merry, clapping her
hands. "And now there is only papa, and then we can go to the sawmill to
order lumber."

"And to the Cove to find a carpenter," added Hope. "Papa can make up his
mind in the boat."

We had visited Florida two years before, and, charmed with the climate,
the river, the oaks, the flowers, the sweet do-nothing life, we had
followed the example of so many worthy Northerners and had bought an old
plantation, intending to start an orange-grove. We had gone over all the
calculations which are so freely circulated in the Florida papers--so
many trees to the acre, so many oranges to the tree: the results were
fairly dazzling. Even granting, with a lordly indifference to trifles
worthy of incipient millionaires, that the trees should bear only
one-fifth of the computed number of oranges, and that they should bring
but one-third of the estimated price, still we should realize one
thousand dollars per acre. And there are three hundred and sixty acres
in our plantation. Ah! even the Pessimist drew a long breath.

Circumstances had, however, prevented our taking immediate steps toward
securing this colossal fortune. But now that it had become necessary for
us to spend the winter in a warm climate, our golden projects were
revived. We would start a grove at once. It was not until we had been
three days at sea, southward bound, that Hope, after diligent study of
an old Florida newspaper, picked up nobody knows where, became the
originator of the farming plan now in process of development.

"The cultivation of the crop becomes th