g
figure in black standing upon the outer edge of the trench. It proved to
be Rosalie Poe; and when I had brought her into the light and warmth of
the fire, I saw how changed and ill she appeared. She told me of the
Mackenzies. Mrs. Mackenzie was dead. "Mat" (Mrs. Byrd) was a widow, with
a beautiful young daughter, and her brother, Mr. Richard, was in
wretched health. Miss Jane Mackenzie had died in England, leaving her
fortune to her brother, residing there, and the destruction of the war
had completed the poverty of the family. They lived on a little place in
the country, with a cow and a garden as their chief means of support.
"They have to work for a living now," Rose said, forlornly; "but I am
not strong enough to work. I am going to Baltimore, to my relations
there, and see what they can do for me."

I inquired after young Dr. Mackenzie, gay, handsome, genial "Tom," whom
everybody loved.

"Tom is dead," said Rose, sadly. "He died of camp-fever and bad food.
When he came home he had only the clothes which he wore, and a neighbor
gave us something to bury him in."

With a pang I thought of the gay wedding at Duncan Lodge, and the happy
faces that had been there assembled.

When Rose left me, I could but hope that she would be kindly received by
her relatives in Baltimore. But some months thereafter, being in New
York, I received from her a number of photographs of her brother, which
she begged of me to dispose of for her benefit at one dollar each. Mrs.
M. A. Kidder, of Boston, kindly interested herself in the matter, but
wrote me that she met with but poor success, at even the reduced price
of twenty-five cents, people saying that they had not sufficient respect
for Poe's character to care to possess his portrait. I found it to be
nearly the same in New York. And meantime Rose wrote me every few days.

"DEAR S----: Haven't you got anything for me yet? Do try and do
something for me, for I am worse off now than ever. I walk about the
streets all day" (trying to dispose of her brother's pictures), "and at
night have to look for a place to sleep. I feel like a lost sheep."

Thus the sister of Edgar A. Poe, in the year 1868, wandered homeless and
friendless through the streets of Baltimore, as more than thirty years
previous her brother had done.

We heard long afterward that, through some kind Northern lady, she
applied for admittance to the _Louise Home_, in Washington, which Mr.
Corcoran was willing to grant