'If any one is blind, it is you,' she answered, with gleaming eyes. 'That man's whole history stood revealed in the selfish complainings of that creature. He had been in the Community from boyhood, therefore of course he had no chance to learn life, to see its art-treasures. He has been shipwrecked, poor soul; hopelessly shipwrecked.' 'She too, Ermine.' 'She!' 'Yes. 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.' 'Nonsense,' 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 hill, 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. 'Do you know Solomon the coal-miner?' asked Ermine, in her correct, well-learned German. 'Sol Bangs? Yes, I know him,' replied Fritz in his Würtemburg dialect. 'What kind of a man is he?' 'Good for nothing,' replied Fritz, placidly. 'Why?' 'Wrong here'; tapping his forehead. 'Do you know his wife?' I asked. 'Yes.' 'What kind of a woman is she?' 'Too much tongue. Women must not talk much.' 'Old 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.'