many a brilliant belle and admired Virginia matron boasted of
having received her education at "Miss Jane's." As I remember her, she
was tall and stately, prim and precise, and was attired generally in
black silk and elaborate cap and frizette, a very _Lady-Prioress_ sort
of a person. She had the reputation of being exceedingly "strict" in
regard to the manners and conduct of her pupils, and was a contrast to
the rest of her family, all of whom were remarkably genial.

When Edgar was about fifteen or sixteen he began to make trouble for
Miss Jane. Repeatedly she would detect him in secret correspondence with
some one of her fair pupils, supplemented on his part by offerings of
candy and "original poetry," his sister Rosalie being the medium of
communication. The verses were sometimes compared by the fair recipients
and found to be alike, with the exception of slight changes appropriate
to each; a practice which he kept up in after years. He possessed some
skill in drawing, and it was his habit to make pencil-sketches of his
girl friends, with locks of their hair attached to the cards.

Poe himself has told of his boyish devotion to Mrs. Stanard, which made
so deep an impression upon the mind and heart of the embryo poet. The
story is well known of how he once accompanied little Robert Stanard
home from school (to see his pet pigeons and rabbits), and how his heart
was won by the gentle and gracious reception given him by the boy's
lovely mother, and the tenderness of tone and manner with which she
talked to him; she knowing his pathetic history. In his heart a chord of
feeling was stirred which had never before been touched; and thenceforth
he regarded her with a passionate and reverential devotion such as we
may imagine the religious devotee to feel for the Madonna. He calls this
"the first pure and ideal love of his soul," and possibly it may in time
have been increased by the knowledge of the doom which hung above and
overtook her at the last--the partial shrouding of the bright intellect,
the effect of a hereditary taint. Indeed, it is probable that on this
account Poe saw very little if anything of Mrs. Stanard in the two
succeeding years, in which time she led a secluded life with her family,
dying in April, 1824, at the age of thirty-one. But the impression had
been made, and remained with him during his lifetime, forming the one
solitary _Ideal_ which pervaded nearly all his poems--the death of the
young, lovel