m their mothers, at that time young girls,
accounts of this famous wedding. The festivities were kept up for full
two weeks, with ever-changing house parties, and each evening music and
dancing, with unbounded hospitality. Miss Jane Mackenzie, upon whom the
family chiefly depended, and whose fortune they expected to inherit, was
gone on a visit to her brother in London; but she had given Mat a
liberal sum wherewith to celebrate her wedding. Sadly my thoughts pass
from this gay time over the next ten years or so to the time of "the
war" and the changes which it brought to this family and to us all.

CHAPTER XXVI.

MRS. WHITMAN.

Poe was still in Richmond, presumably courting the widow Shelton, though
in so quiet a manner that it attracted little or no attention, when he
unexpectedly received from Mrs. Whitman, who seems to have repented of
her silence, a letter or poem of so encouraging a nature that he
immediately left Richmond and proceeded to New York. Here he obtained a
letter of introduction to Mrs. Whitman, which he on the following day
presented to that lady at her home in Providence. The next evening he
spent in her company, and on the succeeding day asked her to marry him!

Receiving no definite answer, he, on his return to New York, sent her a
letter in which, alluding to his previous intention of addressing Mrs.
Shelton, he says:

"Your letter reached me on the very day on which I was about to enter
upon a course which would have borne me far away from you, sweet, sweet
Helen, and the divine dream of your love."

A few weeks later, when he had obtained from her a conditional promise
of marriage, he again wrote--a letter in which he clearly alludes to his
still cherished design of establishing the _Stylus_, from which he
anticipates such brilliant results. Thus he artfully and apparently for
the first time seeks to interest her in the scheme.

"Am I right, dearest Helen, in the impression that you are ambitious? If
so, and if you will have faith in me, I can and will satisfy your
wildest desires. It would be a glorious triumph for us, darling--for you
and me ... to establish in America the sole unquestionable
aristocracy--that of the intellect; to secure its supremacy, to lead and
control it. All this I can do, Helen, and will--if you bid me _and aid
me_."

Aware of her belief in occult and spiritual influences, he tells her
that once, on hearing a lady repeat certain utterances of hers which