gentle, settled himself upon the back seat and declared he would not pay
his passage and work it too. All attempts of the ladies to shame him into
activity were useless. He could not be induced to leave his snuggery, and
even as we talked he was lustily snoring. So do some selfish natures
smoothly slip through the emergencies of life, leaving to others the
responsibilities and exertion; and this man I was afterwards told was a
professional humorist, actually a humorous writer for the press, and I
must accept this as one of his jokes.

After three weary hours we drifted to the shore, and next day went to Red
Bluff, a wild, uncanny place, but abounding in wealth and replete with
generous hearts, of whose bounty I was a rich recipient.

Thence we went to Shasta, where Mr. Hudson, a cousin of Hattie, had rooms
in readiness for us at the American Hotel. The meeting of the cousins,
after a separation of nineteen years, was a joyous one, their animated
conversation keeping time with the quick, impetuous throbbing of their
hearts. The pleasure of our day there was also much enhanced by the
sprightly--even brilliant conversation of the hotel proprietress, Mrs.
Green, whose three-score years and ten were worn as gracefully as many a
maiden's sweet sixteen.

As a protracted rain seemed inevitable, and all business possibilities
were precluded, we assented to Mr. Hudson's proposition to visit his
bachelor quarters in the country, which we found to be one of the most
romantic, sylvan shades imaginable, with its little three roomed-cot
embowered in vines and running roses, then in full bloom, and after the
storm, radiant in color, freighted with perfume and sparkling with liquid
gems. Alone he had occupied this secluded spot for nineteen years, and in
his isolation--