that night. Judge Menefee was
attorney for the storm. The weather was his client, and he strove by
special pleading to convince his companions in that frigid jury-box
that they sojourned in a bower of roses, beset only by benignant
zephyrs. He drew upon a fund of gaiety, wit, and anecdote,
sophistical, but crowned with success. His cheerfulness communicated
itself irresistibly. Each one hastened to contribute his own quota
toward the general optimism. Even the lady passenger was moved to
expression.

"I think it is quite charming," she said, in her slow, crystal tones.

At intervals some one of the passengers would rise and humorously
explore the room. There was little evidence to be collected of its
habitation by old man Redruth.

Bildad Rose was called upon vivaciously for the ex-hermit's history.
Now, since the stage-driver's horses were fairly comfortable and his
passengers appeared to be so, peace and comity returned to him.

"The old didapper," began Bildad, somewhat irreverently, "infested
this here house about twenty year. He never allowed nobody to come
nigh him. He'd duck his head inside and slam the door whenever a team
drove along. There was spinning-wheels up in his loft, all right. He
used to buy his groceries and tobacco at Sam Tilly's store, on the
Little Muddy. Last August he went up there dressed in a red bedquilt,
and told Sam he was King Solomon, and that the Queen of Sheba was
coming to visit him. He fetched along all the money he had--a little
bag full of silver--and dropped it in Sam's well. 'She won't come,'
says old man Redruth to Sam, 'if she knows I've got any money.'

"As soon as folks heard he had that sort of a theory about women and
money they knowed he was crazy; so they sent down and packed him to
the foolish asylum."

"Was there a romance in his life that drove him to a solitary
existence?" asked one of the passengers, a young man who had an
Agency.

"No," said Bildad, "not that I ever heard spoke of. Just ordinary
trouble. They say he had had unfortunateness in the way of love
derangements with a young lady when he was young; before he contracted
red bed-quilts and had his financial conclusions disqualified. I never
heard of no romance."

"Ah!" exclaimed Judge Menefee, impressively; "a case of unrequited
affection, no doubt."

"No, sir," returned Bildad, "not at all. She never married him.
Marmaduke Mulligan, down at Paradise, seen a man once that come from
old Redruth's t