With but slight change in our mode of life, we spent ten long years in
our strange home. Yet the time did not seem long to us. Each day
brought with it quite as much work as we could do, so that weeks and
months and years flew past, till at last we gave up all hope that we
should leave the isle or see our old Swiss home, the thought of which
was still dear to us.

But the lapse of ten years had wrought a great change in our sons.
Frank, who was but a mere child when we first came, had grown up to be
a strong youth; and Jack was as brave a lad as one could wish to see.
Fritz, of course, was now a young man, and took a large share of the
work off my hands. Ernest had just come of age, and his shrewd mode of
thought and great tact was as great a help to us as was the strength
and skill of the rest.

To crown all, it was a rare thing for them to be ill; and they were
free from those sins which too oft tempt young men to stray from the
right path. My wife and I did our best to train them, so that they
might know right from wrong; and it gave us great joy to find that what
we told them sunk deep in their hearts, and, like ripe seed sown in
rich soil, brought forth good fruit.

I need not say that in the course of ten years we had made great
strides in those arts which our wants had first led us to learn. When
we first came the land near Tent House was a bare waste; now it bore
fine crops, and was kept as neat as a Swiss farm. At the foot of the
hill by the side of Rock Cave was a large plot of ground, which we laid
out in beds, and here we grew herbs and shrubs, and such plants as we
used for food. Near this we dug a pond, and by means of a sluice which