As he drew near a corner just around which his new roof-tree stood, he stopped suddenly--in the attitude of one who listens. Peal after peal of rippling laughter was filling the air with music. In his vivid eyes, as he listened, shone the soft light of love and a smile of infinite tenderness played about his lips. Well he knew from what lovely, girlish throat came the merry sounds--sweet and clear as a chime of silver bells. A quickened step brought him instantly in view of her and the cause of her mirth. She stood in the rose-hooded doorway leaning upon a broom. Her cheeks were pink with the exertion she had been making and her sleeves were rolled up, leaving her dimpled, white arms bare to the elbow. Her soft eyes were radiant and she was laughing for sheer delight in the picture the stately "Muddie" made white-washing the palings that enclosed the wee garden-spot from the street. When she saw her husband at the gate she dropped her broom and ran into his arms like a child. "Oh, Buddie, Buddie," she cried, "are not our palings beautiful? Muddie did them for a surprise for you!" "Buddie" was enthusiastic in admiration of the white palings and praised the gentle white-washer to the skies. Then the three happy workers went inside to their simple repast, which the sauce of content turned into a banquet. The door had been left open to the sunshine and the result was an unexpected guest--a handsome tortoise-shell kitten which strayed in to ask a share of their meal. She paused, timidly, upon the threshold for a moment, then fixing her amber eyes upon The Dreamer, made straight for him and arching her back and waving her tail like a plume, in the air she rubbed her glossy sides against his ankle in a manner that was truly irresistible. All three gave her a warm welcome. Edgar regarded her appearance as a good omen; Virginia was delighted to have a pet, and "Catalina," as they named her, became from the moment a regular and favorite member of the family. * * * * * The cottage contained but five rooms--three downstairs (including the kitchen) and upstairs two, with low-pitched, shelving walls and narrow little slits of windows on a level with the floor. But as has been said, it was large enough--large enough to shelter love and happiness and genius--large enough to hold the dream of the Valley of the Many-Colored Grass, with its fair river and its enchanted trees and flowers, in which the three dreamers lived apart and for each other only. It was large enough for the freest expansion the world had yet seen of the vivid-hued imagination of Edgar Poe. Night and day his brain was busy--"fancy unto fancy linking"--and the periodicals teemed with his work.