ugh the dimly-lit streets, slippery with ice, and wind-swept, they
made their way to the two rooms up two flights of stairs, where the
Widow Clemm mended the fire with a few coals at a time and sewed by a
single candle, as she waited for them--the lion of the most
distinguished circle in America and his beautiful wife!

Back from a world of dreams created by a company of dreamers to the
reality of an empty larder and a low fuel pile and a dun from the
landlord from whom they rented the two rooms.

"The Raven" had brought its author laurels in abundance, but only ten
dollars in money. Editors were clamoring for his work and he was
supplying it as fast as one brain and one right hand could; and some of
them were sending their little checks promptly in return and some were
promising little checks some day; but _The Broadway Journal_ had failed
for lack of capital. It was the old story. He had no regular income and
the irregularly appearing little checks only provided a
from-hand-to-mouth sort of living for the three.

Yet they had their dreams. Landlords might turn them out of house and
home but they were powerless to deprive them of their dreams.

Mother Clemm's one candle was burning low--its light and that of the
dying fire barely relieved the room from darkness and did not prevent
the rays of the newly arisen full moon from coming through the lattice
and pouring a heap of silver upon the bare floor.

"Look Muddie! Look Sissy!" cried the poet. "If we lived in a blaze of
light, like your rich folk, we should have to go out of doors to see the
moon. Who says there are not compensations in this life?"

CHAPTER XXX.

But it was not always possible to take a hopeful view. Continued poverty
which oftentimes reached the degree of positive want, anxiety for
Virginia's health and inability to provide for her the remedies and
comforts he felt might preserve her life, were enough to arouse Edgar
Poe's blue devils, and they did.

Why detail the harassments of the rest of that winter, during which The
Dreamer led a strange double life--a life in the public eye of
distinction, prosperity, popularity, but in private, a hunted life--a
life of constant dread of the wrath of a too long indulgent landlord or
grocer--a flitting from one cheap lodgement to another.

One gleam of genuine sunshine brightened the dreary days. The
acquaintance with Frances Osgood begun at Miss Lynch's salon soon
ripened into close friendship.