.
Allan; yet what a joy he found in the very dependence of this devoted,
soft-eyed creature! Never would he taunt Comrade with his dependence
upon charity.

"No;" he said, his hands deep in the silky coat, "I would not insult a
dog as he has insulted me! Never mind, Comrade, old fellow, we'll have
our swim in the river tomorrow, and he may flog me again if he likes."

* * * * *

But he was not flogged the next day. An important business engagement
occupied Mr. Allan the whole afternoon, and when he came in late, tired
and pre-occupied, he found Edgar fresh and glowing from his exercise in
the river, the curls still damp upon his forehead, quietly eating his
supper with his mother. _She_ knew, but tender creature that she was,
she was prepared to do anything short of fibbing to shield her pet from
another out-burst. But John Allan, still absorbed in business cares,
hardly looked toward the boy, and asked not a question.

CHAPTER VI.

The home of the Allans was never quite the same to Edgar Poe after that
night. A wall had been raised between him and his foster-father that
would never be scaled. He was still indulged in a generous amount of
pocket money which he invariably proceeded to get rid of as fast as he
could--lavishing it upon the enjoyment of his friends as freely as it
had been lavished upon him. He had plenty of pets and toys, went to
dancing school, in which his natural love of dancing made him delight,
and was given stiff but merry little parties, at which old Cy, the black
fiddler played and called the figures, and the little host and his
friends conformed to the strict, ceremonious etiquette observed by the
children as well as the grown people of the day.

For these indulgences Frances Allan was chiefly responsible. The one
weak spot in the armor of austerity in which John Allan clothed himself
was his love for his wife, and it was often against what he felt to be
his better judgment that he acquiesced in her system of child-spoiling.
He felt a solemn responsibility toward the boy, and he did his duty by
him, as he saw it, faithfully. It was not in the least his fault that he
did _not_ see that under the broad white brow and sunny ringlets was a
brain in which, like the sky in a dew-drop, a whole world was reflected,
with ever changing pageantry, and that the abstracted expression in the
boy's eyes that he thought could only mean that he was "hatching
mischief,"