ness. Acting upon this
advice, he, one evening in February, presented himself at Mr. Allan's
door. The rest, as told by Ellis, is as follows:

"He was met at the door by Mrs. Allan, who, not recognizing him, said
that her husband had been forbidden by his physician to see visitors.
Thrusting her rudely aside, he rapidly made his way upstairs and into
the chamber where Mr. Allan sat in an arm-chair, who, on seeing him,
raised his cane, threatening to strike him if he approached nearer, and
ordered him to leave the house, which he did."

Woodbury asserts the truth of this story, because, as he says, "Mr.
Ellis had the very best means of knowing the truth." But Ellis was at
this time only a youth of 18 or 20, and had no more opportunity of
knowing the truth than the numerous acquaintances of the Allans' to whom
they related their version of the incident, with never a mention of the
cane. Poe, they said, accused the servant of having delivered his
message to Mrs. Allan and, creating some disturbance, the latter called
to the servant to "drive that drunken man away." Mr. Ellis should have
remembered that Mrs. Allan, to the day of her death, asserted that she
had never but once seen Poe; consequently, this story of the second
meeting between them and of Poe's "rudely thrusting her aside," and
being threatened with the cane, is simply a specimen of the gossip which
was continually being circulated concerning Poe by his enemies.

CHAPTER XIII.

POE'S DOUBLE MARRIAGE.

How it was that Poe, when a mature man of twenty-seven, came to marry
his little cousin of twelve or thirteen has ever appeared something of a
mystery.

As understood by his Richmond friends, it appeared that when, in July of
1835, he left Baltimore to assume the duties of assistant editor to Mr.
White of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, Virginia, deprived of her
constant companion, so missed him and grieved over his absence that her
mother became alarmed for her health, and wrote to Poe concerning it;
and that in May of the following year the two came to Richmond, where
Poe and Virginia were married, she being at that time not fourteen years
of age. For this marriage Mrs. Clemm was severely criticised, the
universal belief being that she had "made the match."

Of any other marriage than this these friends never heard; since it was
only from a letter found among Poe's papers after his death, and the
reluctant admission of Mrs. Clemm, that it beca