Upon the next afternoon Mr. Graham set out on a pilgrimage to Spring Garden. Though it was November the air was mild and the sunshine was mellow. Was the sky always so blue in Spring Garden, he wondered? He found the rose-embowered cottage without difficulty, for he had obtained minute directions. The roses were all gone but the foliage was still green and the little white-paled garden was bright with the sunset-hued flowers of autumn. Flowers and cottage stood bathed in the light of the golden afternoon--the picture of serenity. What marked this quaint, small homestead?--set back from the quiet village street--tucked away behind its garden-spot from the din of the world? What made it different from others of its neighborhood and character? Was it just a notion of his (Mr. Graham wondered) that made him feel that here was poetry pure and simple?--_visible_ poetry? With sensations of keen interest he lifted the knocker. Edgar Poe himself opened the door and his captivating smile, cordial hand-clasp and words of warm, as well as courtly, greeting raised the visitor instantly from the ranks of the caller to the place of a friend. Mr. Graham had met Edgar Poe before and had felt his charm, but he now told himself that to know him one must see him under his own roof, and in the character of host. As the door was opened a flood of music floated out. A divinely sweet mezzo-soprano voice was singing to the accompaniment of a harp. As the master of the house flung wide the sitting-room door and announced the visitor, the sounds ceased, but the musician sat with her hands resting upon the gilded strings for a moment, her eyes turned in inquiry toward the door, then rose and with the simplicity of a child came forward to place her hand in that of Mr. Graham. Mother Clemm who sat near the window with a piece of sewing in her lap also arose, and with gentle dignity came forward to be introduced and to do her part in making the guest welcome. As he took the seat proffered him and entered upon the exchange of commonplace phrases with which a visit of a comparative stranger is apt to begin, Mr. Graham's blue eyes gathered in the details of the reposeful picture of which he had become a part. The open fire, the sunshine lying on the bare but spotless floor, the vases filled with flowers, the few simple pieces of furniture so fitly disposed that they produced a sense of unusual completeness and satisfaction--the row of books, the harp, the cat dosing upon the hearth,--and finally, the people. The master of the house--distinguished, handsome, dominant, genial, his young wife, the embodiment of soft, poetic beauty, and the mother with her saint-like face and gentle, composed manner--her expressive hands busy with her needle work. Was it possible that such a home--such a household--was always there, keeping the even tenor of its way among the unpicturesque conventions of the modern world?