“You think that, because you cannot understand or appreciate it,” she retorted, with spirit.  “Neither do I understand it, but I can see that it is wonderful poetry.  If he can do this at eighteen I have no doubt he will make himself and us famous before many years are past!”

Her husband’s only reply was an astonished and piercing stare which she met without flinching, then turned and swept from the room, leaving him with a feeling of surprise to see that she was so tall.

Her self assertion was but momentary.  As she ascended the stair and entered Eddie’s room, all the elasticity was gone from her step, all the brightness from her cheeks and eyes and, still clasping her boy’s letter and book to her heart, she threw herself upon his bed and burst into a passion of tears.

* * * * *

Meantime, the elms on Boston Common were clothed with tender April green and under foot sweet, soft grass was springing.  In this inspiring cathedral walked Edgar Poe, his pale face and deep eyes, passionate with the worship of beauty that filled his soul, lifted to the greening arches above him, his sensitive ears entranced with the bird-music that fluted through the cool aisles.  His mind was teeming with new poems in the making and with visions of what he should do if his book should sell.

But it did not sell.  The leading magazines acknowledged its receipt in their review columns, but with the merest mention, which was exceedingly disconcerting.  It was discussed (but with disappointment) for a week by his friends at home and at the University, to whom he sent copies.  Then was forgotten.

And now its author was, for the first time within his recollection, beginning to feel the pinch of poverty.  His money was almost gone and he saw no immediate hope of getting more.  He moved to the cheapest boarding house he could find but he did not mind that so much as the prospect that faced him of soon beginning to present a shabby appearance in public.  His shoes were already showing wear, and he found that to keep his linen as immaculate as he had always been accustomed to have it cost money and he actually had to economize in the quantity of clothing he had laundered.  This to his proud and fastidious nature was humiliating in the extreme.

He and Calvin Thomas held frequent colloquies as to ways and means of giving his book wider circulation.  He visited the offices of the several newspapers of the town in the hope of getting work in the line of journalism—­reporting, reviewing, story-writing, anything in the way of the only business or profession for which he felt that he had any aptitude or preparation; but without success.

At length the sign of “Calvin F.S.  Thomas, Printer” had suddenly disappeared from the little shop in Washington Street, and a dismal “To Let,” was in its place.

At about the same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no longer trodden by The Dreamer from Virginia.