So, he continues, he gazed entranced until--the hour being past midnight and a storm-cloud threatening--the lady very properly arose and disappeared from his sight; all but her eyes. These remained and followed him home, and had followed him ever since: "----two sweetly scintillant Venuses; unextinguished by the sun." All this must have been very gratifying to Mrs. Whitman--if she believed in it--but, remembering her neglected valentine, she was in no haste to acknowledge the poetic offering, and Poe, after waiting some weeks, had his attention drawn in another direction. He had written to his friend, Mr. Mackenzie, concerning his matrimonial aspirations, and he now received an answer, suggesting that he come to Richmond and try his fortune with an old-time school-girl sweetheart, Miss Sarah Elmira Royster, now a rich "Widow Shelton," who had several times of late inquired after him and sent her "remembrances." Animated by this new hope, he, late in the summer of 1847, proceeded to Richmond, where he visited among his friends and called upon Mrs. Shelton, but especially paid attention to a pretty widow, a Mrs. Clarke. This lady, when a resident of Louisville, Kentucky, many years after Poe's death, gave to the editor of a paper some reminiscences of him at this time. "The good lady was deeply interested that the world might think well of Poe, and grew warm on the subject of his wrongs. She claimed that the poet was a Virginian, and, like most Virginians, she is very proud of her State. She wondered where Gill had gotten the material for Poe's vindication. She had first met Poe at the Mackenzies, when he was editor of the _Southern Literary Messenger_, and he afterward boarded at the same hotel as herself; but she saw most of him on his visit to Richmond previous to his last. He was then at her house daily, and sometimes two or three times a day. He came there, as he said, to rest. "If there happened to be friends present he was often obliging enough to read, and would sometimes read some of his own poems; but he would never read _The Raven_ unless he felt in the mood for it. When in Richmond he generally stayed with the Mackenzies at _Duncan Lodge_, and would drive in with them at any time. One day he came in with his sister and two of the Mackenzies and stopped with me. There were some other people present, and he read _The Raven_ for us. He shut out the daylight and read by an astral lamp on the table. When he was through all of us that had any tact whatever spared our comments and let our thanks be brief; for he was most impatient of both."