did not need spicing, for palates were not jaded; the
day of the ideal simple life.

Upon this night, as on other nights, young girls who were not yet "gone
to the springs" floated along the fashionable promenades, in airy
muslins, with their cavaliers beside them. Groups of gentlemen and
ladies sat on the porches and children played hide-and-seek, chased
fire-flies, or sat on the steps and listened to the talk of their
elders. And everywhere, in all of the groups, the chief topic was the
boy, Edgar Poe, and his wonderful swim.

And the boy who had in an afternoon become, for the time being at least,
the foremost figure in town, knew it, but did not care.

To lie alone on the grass by the grave of his dead divinity and gaze at
the far stars, and brood upon his young sorrows--this gave him more
satisfaction than to be the central figure of any one of the groups
singing his praise; filled him with a romantic despair that to his
high-strung soul had a more delicately sweet flavor than positive
pleasure.

As to the erect gentleman in the high stock and the pretty lady with
the tender, anxious face--they had, for the present, no part in his
thoughts. It was wrong and ungrateful of him that they should not have,
and if he had remembered them he would have known that it was wrong and
ungrateful; but he would not have cared. And as for his food--he had
supped royally, and without compunction, upon the fruit of an inviting
orchard to which he had helped himself, unblushingly, upon his way into
town.

A reckless mood, born of the restlessness that was in his blood, was
upon him.

The truth was, that poignant as was his pleasure in dwelling upon his
poetical sorrow for the adored "Helen"--his "lost Lenore"--it did not
fully satisfy him. His youthful heart was hungry for response to his
out-poured sentiment, for the more robust diet of mutual love. In plain
English, Edgar Poe wanted, and wanted badly, a sweetheart, though he did
not suspect it.

* * * * *

When, finally, he scaled the cemetery wall and took his way homeward he
did not go directly to the dormer-windowed cottage where the erect
gentleman and the pretty lady awaited him. Just as he was approaching it
he heard Elmira Royster's guitar in the porch opposite, and he crossed
the street and entered the Royster's gate.

The Roysters and Allans had been neighbors for years and he and Elmira
had been "brought up together." At the soun