Strange as it may seem, the “astounding news” was received by the people of New York for fact.  There was a rush for copies of the Sun which announced with truth that it was the only paper in possession of the “news,” and not until denial came from Charleston, several days later, was it suspected that the “news” was all a hoax and that Edgar Goodfellow was simply having a little fun at the expense of the public.

The story did, indeed, earn money with which to bring “Muddie” and “Catalina” to New York.  It did more—­it brought the editors to Greenwich Street looking for manuscript.  They begged for stories as clever and as sensational as “The Balloon Hoax,” but in vain.  Edgar Goodfellow had vanished and in his place was Edgar the Dreamer who only had to tell of,

“A wild, weird clime that lieth sublime
Out of Space—­out of Time,

* * * * *

Where the traveller meets aghast
Sheeted Memories of the Past,—­

Shrouded forms that start and sigh
As they pass the wanderer by,—­
White-robed forms of friends long given
In agony to the Earth and Heaven.”

It was in vain that the editors besought him to try something else in the vein of “The Balloon Hoax,” assuring him that that was what his readers were expecting of him, after his recent “hit”—­that was what they would be willing to pay him for—­pay him well.  Was it the Imp of the Perverse that caused him to positively decline, and to persist that “Dreamland” was all he had to offer just then?

It was Mr. Graham who finally accepted this quaint and beautiful poem, and who published it—­in the June number of Graham’s Magazine.

* * * * *

In October following the return of the Poes to New York—­October of the year 1844—­Mr. Nathaniel P. Willis who was then editor of The Evening Mirror, and had been editor of The Dollar Magazine, when it awarded the prize of a hundred dollars to “The Gold Bug,” was seated at his desk in the “Mirror” office, when in response to his “Come in,” a stranger appeared in his doorway—­a woman—­a lady in the best sense of a word almost become obsolete.  A gentlewoman describes her best of all.  She was a gentlewoman, then, past middle age, yet beautiful with the high type of beauty that only ripe years, beautifully lived, can bring—­the beauty that compensates for the fading of the rose on cheek and lip, the dimming of the light in the eyes, for the frost on the brow—­the beauty of patience, of tenderness, of faith unquenchable by fire or flood of adversity.  A history was written on the face—­a history in which there was plainly much of tragedy.  Yet not one bitter line was there.

It was a face, withal, which could only have belonged to a mother, and might well have belonged to the mother, Niobe.

In figure she was tall and stately, with a gentle dignity.  Her dress was simple to plainness, and might have been called shabby had it been less beautifully neat.  It was of unrelieved black, and she wore a conventional widow’s bonnet, with floating white strings.