"While at the academy in Richmond, he one day accompanied a schoolmate
to his home, where he saw, for the first time, Mrs. Helen Stannard,
the mother of his young friend. This lady, on entering the room, took
his hands and spoke some gentle and gracious words of welcome, which
so penetrated the sensitive heart of the orphan boy as to deprive him
of the power of speech, and for a time almost of consciousness itself.
He returned home in a dream, with but one thought, one hope in life
--to hear again the sweet and gracious words that had made the
desolate world so beautiful to him, and filled his lonely heart with
the oppression of a new joy. This lady afterwards became the confidant
of all his boyish sorrows, and hers was the one redeeming influence
that saved and guided him in the earlier days of his turbulent and
passionate youth."

When Edgar was unhappy at home, which, says his aunt, Mrs. Clemm, "was
very often the case, he went to Mrs. Stannard for sympathy, for
consolation, and for advice." Unfortunately, the sad fortune which so
frequently thwarted his hopes ended this friendship. The lady was
overwhelmed by a terrible calamity, and at the period when her guiding
voice was most requisite, she fell a prey to mental alienation. She
died, and was entombed in a neighboring cemetery, but her poor boyish
admirer could not endure to think of her lying lonely and forsaken in
her vaulted home, so he would leave the house at night and visit her
tomb. When the nights were drear, "when the autumnal rains fell, and the
winds wailed mournfully over the graves, he lingered longest, and came
away most regretfully."

The memory of this lady, of this "one idolatrous and purely ideal love"
of his boyhood, was cherished to the last. The name of Helen frequently