uld find but he did not mind that so much as the prospect
that faced him of soon beginning to present a shabby appearance in
public. His shoes were already showing wear, and he found that to keep
his linen as immaculate as he had always been accustomed to have it cost
money and he actually had to economize in the quantity of clothing he
had laundered. This to his proud and fastidious nature was humiliating
in the extreme.

He and Calvin Thomas held frequent colloquies as to ways and means of
giving his book wider circulation. He visited the offices of the several
newspapers of the town in the hope of getting work in the line of
journalism--reporting, reviewing, story-writing, anything in the way of
the only business or profession for which he felt that he had any
aptitude or preparation; but without success.

At length the sign of "Calvin F.S. Thomas, Printer" had suddenly
disappeared from the little shop in Washington Street, and a dismal "To
Let," was in its place.

At about the same time Mrs. Blanks lost the handsome, quiet young
gentleman, who had evidently seen better days, from her unpretentious
lodging house, and the walks under the elms in Boston Common were no
longer trodden by The Dreamer from Virginia.

CHAPTER XV.

Where was Edgar Poe?--

Twice since he shook the dust of Richmond joyfully from his feet, fair
Springtide had visited the terraced garden of the Allan home. Twice the
green had come forth, first like a misty veil, then like a mantle
enveloping its trees and its shrubs, its arbors and trellises; twice the
procession of flowers, led by the crocuses in their petticoats of purple
and yellow, had tripped from underground; twice the homing birds had
built in the myrtles and among the snowy pear and cherry blossoms and
filled all the place with music. Twice, too, in this garden, the pageant
of spring and summer and sunset-hued autumn had passed, the birds had
flown away again and winter snows had covered all with their whiteness
and their silence.

And still the garden's true-lover, the poet, The Dreamer, was a
wanderer, where?--

Oh, beautiful "Ligeia," was it not your voice that now and again
whispered in the tree-tops and among the flowers? Could you not--did you
not, bring news of the wanderer?

If she did, there was no human being to whom her language was
intelligible, and the trees and the flowers keep their secrets well.

Within the homestead there was little change save a dee