y and beloved. This experience was probably the beginning of
those occasional dreamy and melancholy moods about this time noticed by
some of his companions. The living friend of his boyhood's dream became
the "lost Lenore" of his maturer years.

But though Poe deeply felt the loss of this beloved friend, the story is
not to be accepted that he was accustomed to go at night to the cemetery
where she was buried "and there, prostrate on her grave, weep away the
long hours of cold and darkness." No one who knew Poe in his boyhood,
with his horror of cemeteries, of darkness, and of being alone at night,
would believe this story, first told by Poe himself to Mrs. Whitman, and
by her poetic fancy further embellished. Besides this is the practical
refutation afforded by the high brick wall and locked gates of the
cemetery, with the strict discipline of the Allan home, which would have
made such midnight excursions impossible.

Another account connected with Mrs. Stanard, and repeated by Poe's
biographers until it has become an article of faith with the public, is
that the exquisite lines "To Helen" were inspired by and addressed to
that lady. If written at ten years of age, as Poe asserts, it will be
remembered that he was at this time at school in London, and it was not
until two years after his return, and when he was thirteen years of age,
that he ever saw Mrs. Stanard. He might have altered the lines to suit
her--his "Psyche," with the pale and "classic face"--and I recall that
the "folded scroll" of the first version was afterward changed to "the
agate lamp within thy hand," as more appropriate to Psyche. Poe never
made an alteration in his poems that was not an improvement.

Those who knew Mrs. Stanard describe her as slender and graceful, with
regular delicate features, a complexion of marble pallor and dark,
pensive eyes. A portrait of her which was in possession of her son,
Judge Robert Stanard, represented her as a young girl wearing--perhaps
in respect to her Scottish descent--a _snood_ in her dark, curling
hair.

CHAPTER VI.

ROSALIE POE.

Of Edgar Poe's sister, Rosalie, it may be said that all accounts
represent her as having been, up to the age of ten years, a pretty
child, with blue eyes and rosy cheeks, and of a sweet disposition.
Though evincing nothing of Edgar's talent and quickness at learning, she
was yet a rather better pupil than the average; and it had been Miss
Mackenzie's intention to gi