astic conscience of
childhood made note of it--confusing the will of a blind human guardian
with that of God. The Eden of his dreams, guarded by the flaming sword
of his foster-father's wrath, began to assume the aspect (because by
parental command denied him) of an evil place--though none the less
sweet to his soul--and it was with a consciousness of guilt that he
would steal in and wander there.

Thus the habit that nurtured God-given genius, branded as sin, and
forbidden, might have been broken up, altogether or in part, had not the
special providence that looks after the development of this rare exotic
transplanted it to a more fertile soil--a more congenial clime.

CHAPTER III.

Upon a mellow September afternoon three years after the newspapers had
announced the death, in Richmond, Virginia, of Elizabeth Arnold, the
popular English actress, generally known in the United States as Mrs.
Poe, the ancient town of Stoke-Newington, in the suburbs of London,
dozing in the shadows of its immemorial elms, was aroused to a mild
degree of activity by the appearance upon its green-arched streets of
three strangers--evidently Americans. It was not so much their
nationality as a certain distinguished air that drew attention upon the
dignified and proper gentleman in broadcloth and immaculate linen, the
pretty, gracious-seeming and fashionably dressed lady and especially the
little boy of six or seven summers with the large, wistful eyes and pale
complexion, and chestnut ringlets framing a prominent, white brow and
tumbling over a broad, snowy tucker. He wore pongee knickerbockers and
red silk stockings and on his curls jauntily rested a peaked velvet cap
from which a heavy gold tassel fell over upon his shoulder.

The denizens of old Stoke-Newington gazed upon this prosperous trio with
frank curiosity; the reader has already recognized John Allan and his
wife, Frances, and little Edgar Poe--their adopted child.

The sun was still hot, and the refreshing chill in the dusky street,
under its arch of interlacing boughs, was grateful to the tired little
traveller. As he moved along, clinging to Mrs. Allan's hand, his big
eyes gazing as far as they might up the long, cool aisle the trees made,
the hazy green distance invited his mystery-loving fancy. The odors of a
thousand flowering shrubberies were on the air and he felt that it was
good to be in this dreaming old town--as old, it seemed to him, as the
world; and there