but not entirely subdued, sometimes broke out afresh in little round,
sticky, resinous tears on the doors and windows. It seemed to me that
boarding there must seem like a perpetual picnic. As I entered the door,
a number of the regular boarders rushed out of a long room, and set
about trying to get the taste of something out of their mouths, by
the application of tobacco in various forms. A few immediately ranged
themselves around the fireplace, with their legs over each other's
chairs, and in that position silently resigned themselves to
indigestion. Remembering the pie, I waived the invitation of the
landlord to supper, but suffered myself to be conducted into the
sitting-room. "Mine host" was a magnificent-looking, heavily bearded
specimen of the animal man. He reminded me of somebody or something
connected with the drama. I was sitting beside the fire, mutely
wondering what it could be, and trying to follow the particular chord
of memory thus touched, into the intricate past, when a little
delicate-looking woman appeared at the door, and, leaning heavily
against the casing, said in an exhausted tone, "Husband!" As the
landlord turned toward her, that particular remembrance flashed before
me in a single line of blank verse. It was this: "Two souls with but one
single thought, two hearts that beat as one."
It was Ingomar and Parthenia his wife. I imagined a different denouement
from the play. Ingomar had taken Parthenia back to the mountains, and
kept a hotel for the benefit of the Alemanni, who resorted there in
large numbers. Poor Parthenia was pretty well fagged out, and did all
the work without "help." She had two "young barbarians," a boy and a
girl. She was faded, but still good-looking.
I sat and talked with Ingomar, who seemed perfectly at home and told
me several stories of the Alemanni, all bearing a strong flavor of
the wilderness, and being perfectly in keeping with the house. How he,
Ingomar, had killed a certain dreadful "bar," whose skin was just up
"yar," over his bed. How he, Ingomar, had killed several "bucks," whose
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