he wife of youth. So
Richmond gave its unqualified approval.

Nothing could have been more out of harmony with the sound of the
"mellow wedding bells" pealing for this happy pair, than a reminder of
the first wife of the bridegroom in the shape of a letter from Edgar
Poe.

When Poe had entered West Point his foster-father had drawn a long
breath of relief. He believed that the idle youth with whom his dead
wife had been so strangely infatuated was off his hands for good and
all. When the letter came to jar upon his new dream of love he was
irritated, and in his brief mention of the matter to his bride it was
very apparent, and left upon her mind the impression that Frances Allan
must have been a weak and silly creature indeed, to have fancied an
idle, ungrateful boy who spent his time drinking, gambling and
scribbling ridiculous poetry. _And the son of an actress!_ It would have
been impossible for such a low character and herself to have remained
under the same roof for a day, she was sure, and she told her husband
so--imparting to her tone somewhat of the pity she felt to think of his
having been yoked for years to such a morally frail specimen of
womanhood as she conceived the first Mrs. Allan to have been.

So Mr. Allan's letter of refusal to help Edgar escape the life that was
growing more and more irksome to him was as decided as it was brief. But
Edgar was unshaken in his resolve to get away as soon as possible. In
the meantime, finding no outlet for his restless creative faculty that
would not remain inactive though there was no opportunity for its
satisfaction, he gave himself over by turns, to deepest dejection and
wildest hilarity.

Finally, as no other relief was at hand, he decided to force his
discharge by deliberate and systematic neglect of the rules. The plan
succeeded so well that before the session was out he was expelled from
the Academy for disobedience of orders and failure to attend roll-calls,
classes and guard-duty.

CHAPTER XVII.

Happily, the restraints of the Academy and his environment there,
instead of crushing out young Edgar's impulse to dream and to put his
dreams into writing (as a longer period of the same restraints and
conditions might have done) had but quickened and strengthened these
very impulses, and he had now but one wish, one aspiration in regard to
his newly acquired freedom, and that was to dedicate it to the art of
literature which had become more and more