viance
had blurted out--"And a shiftless vagabond too, Warfield, if what I hear
is true. Fine subject for St. George to waste his Madeira on!" Purviance
had never read a dozen lines of anybody's poetry in his life, and looked
upon all literary men as no better than play actors.

It was then that Richard Horn, his eyes flashing, had retorted:

"If I did not know how kind-hearted you were, Purviance, and how
thoughtless you can sometimes be in your criticisms, I might ask you to
apologize to both Mr. Poe and myself. Would it surprise you to know that
there is no more truth in what you say than there is in the reports of
that gentleman's habitual drunkenness? It was but a year ago that I met
him at his cousin's house and I shall never forget him. Would it also
surprise you to learn that he has the appearance of a man of very great
distinction?--that he was faultlessly attired in a full suit of black
and had the finest pair of eyes in his head I have ever looked into? Mr.
Poe is not of your world, or of mine--he is above it. There is too much
of this sort of ill-considered judgment abroad in the land. No--my dear
Purviance--I don't want to be rude and I am sure you will not think I
am personal. I am only trying to be just to one of the master spirits
of our time so that I won't be humiliated when his real worth becomes a
household word."

The women took a different view.

"I can't understand what Mr. Temple is thinking of," said the wife
of the archdeacon to Mrs. Cheston. "This Mr. Poe is something
dreadful--never sober, I hear. Mr. Temple is invariably polite to
everybody, but when he goes out of his way to do honor to a man like
this he only makes it harder for those of us who are trying to help our
sons and brothers--" to which Mrs. Cheston had replied with a twinkle
in her mouse eyes and a toss of her gray head:--"So was Byron, my dear
woman--a very dreadful and most disreputable person, but I can't spare
him from my Library, nor should you."

None of these criticisms would have affected St. George had he heard
them, and we may be sure no one dared tell him. He was too busy, in
fact--and so was Harry, helping him for that matter--setting his house
in order for the coming function.

That the table itself might be made the more worthy of the great man,
orders were given that the big silver loving-cup--the one presented
to his father by no less a person than the Marquis de Castellux
himself--should be brought out to