his time, though the mother of Edgar's twelve-year-old chum, not thirty
years of age, and her pensive beauty was in its fullest flower. Against
the sombre background the arbor-vitae made, her slight figure, clad in
soft, clinging white, seemed airy and sylphlike. Her dark, curling hair,
girlishly bound with a ribbon snood, and her large brown eyes, were in
striking contrast to her complexion, which was pale, with the radiant
and warm palor of a tea-rose or a pearl. Her features were daintily
modelled, and like slender lilies were the hands holding the deep blue
plate from which the pigeons--white, grey and bronze, fed--fluttering
about her with soft cooings.

The picture was so much more like a poet's dream than a reality, that
the boy-poet stepped back, with an exclamation of surprise.

"It is only my mother," explained Rob. "She'll be glad to see you."

The next moment she had perceived the boys, and with quick impulse, set
the plate upon the ground and came forward, and before a word of
introduction could be spoken, had taken the visitor's hand between both
her own fair palms, holding it thus, with gentle, gracious pressure, in
a pretty, cordial way she had, while she greeted him.

The soft eyes that rested on his face filled with kindness and welcome.

"So this is my Rob's friend," she was saying, in a low, musical voice.
"Rob's mother is delighted to see you for his sake and for your own too,
Edgar, for I greatly admired _your_ gifted mother. I saw her once only,
when I was a young girl, but I can never forget her lovely face and
sweet, plaintive voice. It was one of the last times she ever acted, and
she was ill and pale, but she was exquisitely beautiful and made the
most charming Juliet. She interested me more than any actress I have
ever seen."

Edgar Poe longed to fall down and kiss her feet--to worship her. Her
beauty, her gentleness and her gracious words so stirred his soul that
he grew faint. Power of speech almost left him, and, vastly to his
humiliation, he could with difficulty control his voice to utter a few
stumbling words of thanks--he who was usually so ready of speech!

If she noticed his confusion she did not appear to do so. Her heart had
been touched by all she had heard from her son of the lonely boy, and
she had also been interested in accounts of his gifts that had come to
her from various sources. The beauty, the poetry, the pensiveness of his
face moved her deeply--knowing his histor