Edgar Poe looked every inch a bridegroom as, with his girl-wife upon his arm, he stepped forth from Mrs. Yarrington’s boarding-house, opposite the green slopes of Capitol Square.  A bridegroom indeed!—­plainly, but perfectly apparelled—­handsome, proud, fearless—­his great eyes luminous with solemn joy.

The simplest of white frocks became Virginia’s innocence and beauty more than costly bridal array and the nosegay of white violets above her chaste bosom was her only ornament.

With this sweet pair came the happy mother and a little train of close friends.  It was late afternoon.  The sunshine was mellow and the air was filled with the delicious insense which in mid-May the majestic paulonia tree drops from its purple bells and which is the very breath of the warm-natured South.

No line of carriages stood at the door.  No awning shut the picture they made from admiring eyes, but happily the little party chatted together as they strolled under over-arching greenery to the corner of Main and Seventh Streets, where in the prim parlor of the Presbyterian minister, the words were pronounced which told the world that Edgar Poe and Virginia Clemm were one.

Upon the return of the party to Mrs. Yarrington’s, a cake was cut, the health and happiness of the bride and groom were drunk in wine of “Muddie’s” own make, and the modest festival was over.

* * * * *

How happy the young lovers and dreamers were in their home-making!  Their housekeeping and furnishings were the simplest, but love made everything beautiful and sufficient.  They had a garden in which they planted all their favorite flowers and to which came the birds—­the birds with whom they had discovered a sudden kinship, for they too, were nesting—­and filled it with music.  And they sang and chatted as happily as the birds themselves as the pretty business progressed.

How delightful it was to receive their friends, together, in their own home and at their own board—­Eddie’s old friends, especially.  Rob Stanard, now a prosperous lawyer, and Rob Sully whose reputation as an artist was growing, were the first to call and present their compliments to the bride and groom; and how cordial they were!  How affectionate to Eddie—­how warm in their expressions of friendship for the girl-wife!

Virginia found it the greatest fun imaginable to go to market with “Muddie,” with a basket hanging from her pretty arm.  The market men and women began to daily watch for the sweet face and tripping step of the exquisite child whom it seemed so comical to address as “Mrs. Poe,” and who rewarded their open admiration with the loveliest smile, the prettiest words of greeting and interest, the merriest rippling laugh that rang through the market place and waked echoes in many a heart that had believed itself a stranger to joy.

And the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass was reconstructed in even more than its old beauty.  The flowers of love and contentment and innocent pleasure that besprinkled its green carpet had never been so many or so gay, the dream-mountains that shut it in from the rest of the world were as fair as sunset clouds, and the peace that flowed through it as a river broke into singing as it flowed.