Yet the most that he could afford in the way of a home was up two flights of stairs—­two rooms in the third story of a dingy old house in East Broadway.  Mother Clemm and Virginia kept them bright and spotless and “Catalina” dosing on the hearth gave a final touch of comfort, and they were far above the noise and dust of the streets, with windows opening upon a goodly view of the sky.  They had a front and a back room, so that the beauties of the dawn and the noontide—­of sunset and moonrise—­were all theirs.

And the Wolf came not near the door, and the three whose natures were like to the natures of the oak, the vine and the heartsease, and who lived for each other only, dreamed again the dream of the wonderful valley—­the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass.

CHAPTER XXIX.

Up, up the stairs, two steps at a time, sprang The Dreamer, one white January day, and burst in upon Mother Clemm who was preparing dinner, and Virginia who was mending his coat.  He was in a great glee.  He caught “Muddie” in his arms where she stood with her hands deep in a tray of dough, and kissed her, then stooped over Virginia and kissed her, and dropped into her lap a crisp ten dollar bank note.  She gave a little scream of delight.

“Where did you get it?” she cried?

“From Willis.  I’ve sold him ‘The Raven.’  He’s vastly taken with it and not only paid me the ten, in advance, but will give the poem an editorial puff in the Mirror of the nineteenth.  He showed me a rough draft.  He will say that it is ’the most effective example of fugitive poetry ever published in this country,’ and predict that it will ’stick in the memory of everybody who reads it!’”

“And it will!  It will!” cried Virginia.  “Especially that ‘Nevermore.’  I’ve done everything in time to it since the first night you read it to us.”

“I’ve done everything in time to it since I was three years old,” murmured her husband.  He drew the miniature from the inside pocket of his coat where he had carried it, close against his heart, throughout his life, and gazed long upon it.  In his grey eyes was the tender, brooding expression which the picture always called forth.  “Ever since I heard that word for the first time from the lips of my old nurse when she took me in to see my mother robed for the grave, my feet and my thoughts have kept time to it; and generally when my steps and my face have been set toward hope and happiness it has risen before me like a wall, blocking my way.”

Virginia arose from her chair letting her work and the bank note fall unheeded from her lap, and went to him.  Gently taking the miniature from his hands she restored it to its place in his pocket and then with a hand on each of his shoulders lifted her eyes to his.

“Buddie,” she said, calling him by the old pet name of their earliest days, “You frighten me sometimes.  The miniature is beautiful but it makes you so sad.  And when you talk that way about ‘The Raven,’ I feel as if I could hear your tears dropping on my coffin-lid!” Then, with a sudden change of mood, her laugh rang out, and she pressed her lips upon his.