this time little more than a cheap, though respectable,
boarding-house for business men. Broad street--so named from its unusual
width--extended several miles in a straight line from Chimberazo Heights
and Church Hill on the east, where Mrs. Shelton had her residence, to
the western suburbs, where Duncan Lodge and our own home of "_Talavera_"
were situated. This was the route which Poe traversed in his visits to
Mrs. Shelton. There were no street cars in those days, hacks were
expensive, and the walk from "the Swan" to Church Hill was long and
fatiguing. Poe would break his journey by stopping to rest at the office
of Dr. John Carter, a young physician who had recently hung out his
sign, about half-way between those two points.

During the three months of his stay in Richmond we saw a good deal of
Poe. He appeared at first to be in not very good health or spirits, but
soon brightened up and was invariably cheerful, seeming to be enjoying
himself. I do not know to what it was to be attributed, unless to his
increased fame as a poet, but certainly his reception in Richmond at
this time was very different from what it had been two years previously.
He became the fashion; and was _feted_ in society and discussed in the
papers. His friend, Mrs. Julia Mayo Cabell--a first cousin of Mrs.
Allan--inaugurated the evening entertainments to which people were
invited "to meet Mr. Poe." It was generally expected that at these
gatherings he would recite _The Raven_, and this he was often obliging
enough to do, though we knew that it was to him an unwelcome task. In
our own home, no matter who were the visitors, we would never allow this
request to be made of him after he had on one occasion gratified us by a
recital. I remember on this occasion being disappointed in his manner of
delivery. I had expected some little graceful and expressive action,
but he sat motionless as a statue except that at the line,

"_Prophet! cried I, thing of evil!_"

he slightly erected his head; and again, in repeating:

"Get thee back into the tempest and the night's plutonian shore!"

he turned his face suddenly though slightly toward the outer darkness of
the open window near which he sat, each time raising his voice. He
explained his own idea to be that any action served to attract the
attention of the audience from the poem to the speaker, thus detracting
from the effect of the former. I was told how, at one of these
entertainments, Poe was emb