his hearers with the memorable words,
"Give me liberty or give me death!" and sent them forever
"ringing down the grooves of time."

Mrs. Tubbs remained with Mr. Placide's company, and doubtless returned
with them to England and to her own family.

Six weeks after the death of Mrs. Poe occurred that awful tragedy and
holocaust of the burning of the Richmond theatre, which shrouded the
whole country in gloom. On that night a large and fashionable audience
attended the performance of "_The Bleeding Nun_," eighty of whom
perished in the flames. Mrs. Allen had expressed a wish to attend, with
her sister and little Edgar, but her husband objected and instead took
them on a Christmas visit to the country; so they escaped the tragedy,
as did also the members of Placide's company.

CHAPTER II.

POE'S FIRST HOME.

Mr. and Mrs. Mackenzie, on taking charge of the Poe children, entered
into a correspondence with their grandfather, Mr. David Poe, of
Baltimore, in regard to them. He was by no means anxious to claim them.
He represented that he and his wife were old and poor, and that already
having the eldest child, William Henry, upon his hands, he could not
afford to burden himself with the others. Finally he proposed that the
children should be placed in an orphan asylum, where they would be
properly cared for, on hearing of which Mrs. Mackenzie declared that she
would never turn the baby, Rosalie, out of her home, but would bring her
up with her own children; while Mrs. Allan, who was childless and had
become much attached to Edgar, proposed to her husband to adopt him.

Mr. Allan demurred. His chief objection was that the boy was the child
of actors, and that to have him brought up as his son would not be
advisable for him or creditable to themselves. It required some special
pleading on the part of the lady, and she so far prevailed as that her
husband consented to keep and care for the boy as for a son, but refused
to be bound by any terms of legal responsibility as either guardian or
adoptive parent, preferring to remain free to act in the future as he
might think proper. Mr. Mackenzie pursued the same course with regard to
Rosalie, though each bestowed on his protege his own family name in
baptism.

There has been much useless discussion among Poe's biographers in regard
to the ages of the children at this time. Woodbury "_calculates_,"
according to certain data obtained from a Boston newspaper regarding