blankly, that with the
exception of a single woman in Opelousas Parish, La., she had more soul
than the whole caboodle of them put together. Few indeed could read
those lines entitled "Infelissimus," commencing, "Why waves no cypress
o'er this brow?" originally published in "The Avalanche," over the
signature of "The Lady Clare," without feeling the tear of sensibility
tremble on his eyelids, or the glow of virtuous indignation mantle his
cheek, at the low brutality and pitiable jocularity of "The Dutch Flat
Intelligencer," which the next week had suggested the exotic character
of the cypress, and its entire absence from Fiddletown, as a reasonable
answer to the query.

Indeed, it was this tendency to elaborate her feelings in a metrical
manner, and deliver them to the cold world through the medium of the
newspapers, that first attracted the attention of Tretherick. Several
poems descriptive of the effects of California scenery upon a too
sensitive soul, and of the vague yearnings for the infinite, which an
enforced study of the heartlessness of California society produced in
the poetic breast, impressed Mr. Tretherick, who was then driving a
six-mule freight-wagon between Knight's Ferry and Stockton, to seek out
the unknown poetess. Mr. Tretherick was himself dimly conscious of a
certain hidden sentiment in his own nature; and it is possible that
some reflections on the vanity of his pursuit,--he supplied several
mining-camps with whiskey and tobacco,--in conjunction with the
dreariness of the dusty plain on which he habitually drove, may have
touched some chord in sympathy with this sensitive woman. Howbeit, after
a brief courtship,--as brief as was consistent with some previous legal
formalities,--they were married; and Mr. Tretherick brought his blushing
bride to Fiddletown, or "Fideletown," as Mrs. Tretherick preferred to
call it in her poems.

The union was not a felicitous one. It was not long before Mr.
Tretherick discovered that the sentiment he had fostered while
freighting between Stockton and Knight's Ferry was different from that
which his wife had evolved from the contemplation of California scenery
and her own soul. Being a man of imperfect logic, this caused him to
beat her; and she, being equally faulty in deduction, was impelled to
a certain degree of unfaithfulness on the same premise. Then Mr.
Tretherick began to drink, and Mrs. Tretherick to contribute regularly
to the columns of "The Avalanche."