ts garden-spot from the din of the world? What made it different
from others of its neighborhood and character? Was it just a notion of
his (Mr. Graham wondered) that made him feel that here was poetry pure
and simple?--_visible_ poetry?

With sensations of keen interest he lifted the knocker. Edgar Poe
himself opened the door and his captivating smile, cordial hand-clasp
and words of warm, as well as courtly, greeting raised the visitor
instantly from the ranks of the caller to the place of a friend. Mr.
Graham had met Edgar Poe before and had felt his charm, but he now told
himself that to know him one must see him under his own roof, and in the
character of host.

As the door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet
mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the
master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the
visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting
upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward
the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to
place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the
window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle
dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making the
guest welcome.

As he took the seat proffered him and entered upon the exchange of
commonplace phrases with which a visit of a comparative stranger is apt
to begin, Mr. Graham's blue eyes gathered in the details of the
reposeful picture of which he had become a part. The open fire, the
sunshine lying on the bare but spotless floor, the vases filled with
flowers, the few simple pieces of furniture so fitly disposed that they
produced a sense of unusual completeness and satisfaction--the row of
books, the harp, the cat dosing upon the hearth,--and finally, the
people. The master of the house--distinguished, handsome, dominant,
genial, his young wife, the embodiment of soft, poetic beauty, and the
mother with her saint-like face and gentle, composed manner--her
expressive hands busy with her needle work. Was it possible that such a
home--such a household--was always there, keeping the even tenor of its
way among the unpicturesque conventions of the modern world?

After the first formalities had been exchanged he had delicately
intimated that he had come on business, but he soon began to see that
whatever his business might be it was