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Ermine.”
    â€œShe!”
    â€œYes. If he loved pictures, she loved her chany and her feather-beds, not to speak of the big looking-glass. No doubt she had other lovers, and might have lived in a red brick farmhouse with ten unopened front windows and a blistered front door. The wives of men of genius are always to be pitied; they do not soar into the crowd of feminine admirers who circle round the husband, and they are therefore called ‘grubs,’ ‘worms of the earth,’ ‘drudges,’ and other sweet titles.”
    â€œNonsense,” said Ermine, tumbling the arched coals into chaos with the poker; “it’s after midnight, let us go up stairs.” I knew very well that my beautiful cousin enjoyed the society of several poets, painters, musicians, and others of that ilk, without concerning herself about their stay-at-home wives.
    The next day the winds were out in battle array, howling over the Strasburg hills, raging up and down the river, and whirling the colored leaves wildly along the lovely road to the One-Leg Creek. Evidently there could be no rambling in the painted woods that day, so we went over to old Fritz’s shop, played on his home-made piano, inspected the woolly horse who turned his crank patiently in an underground den, and set in motion all the curious little images which the carpenter’s deft fingers had wrought. Fritz belonged to the Community, and knew nothing of the outside world; he had a taste for mechanism, which showed itself in many labor-saving devices, and with it all he was the roundest, kindest little man, with bright eyes like a canary-bird.
    â€œDo you know Solomon the coal-miner?” asked Ermine, in her correct, well-learned German.
    â€œSol Bangs? Yes, I know him,” replied Fritz, in his Würtemberg dialect.
    â€œWhat kind of a man is he?”
    â€œGood for nothing,” replied Fritz, placidly.
    â€œWhy?”
    â€œWrong here”; tapping his forehead.
    â€œDo you know his wife?” I asked.
    â€œYes.”
    â€œWhat kind of a woman is she?”
    â€œToo much tongue. Women must not talk much.”
    â€œOld Fritz touched us both there,” I said, as we ran back laughing to the hotel through the blustering wind. “In his opinion, I suppose, we have the popular verdict of the township upon our two protégés , the sulphur-woman and her husband.”
    The next day opened calm, hazy, and warm, the perfection of Indian summer; the breezy hill was outlined in purple, and the trees glowed in rich colors. In the afternoon we started for the sulphur-spring without shawls or wraps, for the heat was almost oppressive; we loitered on the way through the still woods, gathering the tinted leaves, and wondering why no poet has yet arisen to celebrate in fit words the glories of the American autumn. At last we reached the turn whence the lonely house came into view, and at the bars we saw the dog awaiting us.
    â€œEvidently the sulphur-woman does not like that melancholy animal,” I said, as we applied our united strength to the gate.
    â€œDid you ever know a woman of limited mind who liked a large dog?” replied Ermine. “Occasionally such a woman will fancy a small cur; but to appreciate a large, noble dog requires a large, noble mind.”
    â€œNonsense with your dogs and minds,” I said, laughing. “Wonderful! There is a curtain.”
    It was true. The paper had been removed from one of the windows, and in its place hung some white drapery, probably part of a sheet rigged as a curtain.
    Before we reached the piazza the door opened, and our hostess appeared. “Glad to see yer, ladies,” she said. “Walk right in this way to the keeping-room.”
    The dog went away to his block-house, and we followed the woman into a room on the right of the hall; there were three rooms, beside the attic above. An Old-World German stove of brick-work occupied a large portion of