I was already so familiar with his personal surroundings, as to know that he was a widower, with two children; the eldest, a boy of fifteen, away at school; the second, a girl of eleven, of delicate health, and educated at home, so far as she studied at all, by a day-governess. I had never seen this daughter--Lenore, he called her--but I could guess, without particular shrewdness, that his heart was wrapped up in her. He could not mention her name without a glow coming into his face; her frail health appeared to be the anxiety of his life. I could hear her, now, taking a singing-lesson in a distant apartment, and as her pure voice rose clear and high, mounting and mounting with airy steps the difficult scale, I listened delightedly, making a picture in my mind of the graceful little creature such a voice should belong to. Her father was listening, too, with a smile in his eye, half forgetful of his coffee. Presently he said, in a low voice, speaking at first with some reluctance, "I sent for you to-day, more particularly to make you the confidential witness of an experiment than any thing else. You hear my Lenore singing now--has she not a sweet voice? I have told you how delicate her health is. I discovered, by chance, some two or three years since, that she had peculiar attributes. She is an excellent clairvoyant. When I first discovered it, I made use of her rare faculty to assist me in my more important labors; but I soon discovered that it told fearfully upon her health. It seemed to drain the slender stream of vitality nearly dry. Our physician told me that I must desist, entirely, all experiments of the kind with her. He was peremptory about it, but he had only need to caution me. I would sooner drop a year out of my shortening future than to take one grain from that increasing strength which I watch from day to day with deep solicitude. She is my only girl, Mr. Redfield, and the image of her departed mother. You must not wonder if I am foolish about my Lenore. For eighteen months I have not exercised my power over her to place her in the trance state, or whatever it is, in which, with the clue in her hand, she will unwind the path to more perplexed labyrinths than those of the fair one's bower. And I tell you, solemnly, that if, by so doing, she could point out pots of gold, or the secrets of diamond mines, I would not risk her slightest welfare, by again exhausting her recruiting energies. Nevertheless, so deeply am I interested in the tragedy to which you have called my attention--so certain am I that I am on the eve of the solution of the mystery--and such an act of justice and righteousness do I deem it that it should be exposed in its naked truth before those who have suffered from the crime--that I have resolved to place Lenore once more in the clairvoyant state, for the purpose of ascertaining the hiding-place of Leesy Sullivan, and I have sent for you to witness the result."