as much of a child as any of the pupils, joining in their
sports of swinging and skipping rope. On one occasion her
husband--"Buddy"--came unexpectedly to bring her home, when she
scandalized Miss Jane Mackenzie by rushing into the street and greeting
him with the _abandon_ of a child.

Nearly twenty years after this time there were persons living on Main
street who remembered having almost daily seen about the Old Market, in
business hours, a tall, dignified looking woman, with a market basket
on one arm, while on the other hung a little girl with a round,
ever-smiling face, who was addressed as "Mrs. Poe"! She, too, carried a
basket.

Whatsoever was the cause of Poe's discontent, he never appeared happy or
satisfied while in Richmond. His dissipated habits grew upon him, with a
consequent neglect of editorial duties, which sorely tried the patience
of his good and kind friend, Mr. White, to whom, it must be admitted,
Poe never appeared sufficiently grateful. Whether Mr. White was
compelled at length to reluctantly discharge him, or whether, as Mr.
Kennedy says, Poe himself gave up his place as editor of the
_Messenger_, thinking that with his now established literary reputation
he could do better in the North, is not clear; but in the summer of 1838
he left Richmond and, with his family, removed to New York.

Mrs. Clemm, at least, could not have been averse to the move; for it
seems certain that there was a general prejudice against her on account
of her having made or consented to the match between her little daughter
and a man of Poe's age and dissipated habits.

CHAPTER XV.

IN NEW YORK.

Of Poe's business and literary affairs in New York, and subsequently in
Philadelphia, his biographers have fully informed us, but with little or
no mention of his home life or his family. All that we can gather
concerning the latter is that never at any time were their circumstances
such as would enable them to dispense with the utmost economy of living,
and that, as regarded the practical everyday business affairs of life,
Poe was almost as helpless and dependent upon his mother-in-law as was
his child-wife. But for this devoted mother, what could they have
done?--those two, whom she rightly called her "children."

Poe was sadly disappointed in his hopes of obtaining literary employment
in New York, and but for Mrs. Clemm's opening a boarding-house on
Carmine street, an obscure locality, the family might have sta