his idle habit fall upon his ears that the plastic conscience of
childhood made note of it--confusing the will of a blind human guardian
with that of God. The Eden of his dreams, guarded by the flaming sword
of his foster-father's wrath, began to assume the aspect (because by
parental command denied him) of an evil place--though none the less
sweet to his soul--and it was with a consciousness of guilt that he
would steal in and wander there.

Thus the habit that nurtured God-given genius, branded as sin, and
forbidden, might have been broken up, altogether or in part, had not the
special providence that looks after the development of this rare exotic
transplanted it to a more fertile soil--a more congenial clime.




CHAPTER III.


Upon a mellow September afternoon three years after the newspapers had
announced the death, in Richmond, Virginia, of Elizabeth Arnold, the
popular English actress, generally known in the United States as Mrs.
Poe, the ancient town of Stoke-Newington, in the suburbs of London,
dozing in the shadows of its immemorial elms, was aroused to a mild
degree of activity by the appearance upon its green-arched streets of
three strangers--evidently Americans. It was not so much their
nationality as a certain distinguished air that drew attention upon the
dignified and proper gentleman in broadcloth and immaculate linen, the
pretty, gracious-seeming and fashionably dressed lady and especially the
little boy of six or seven summers with the large, wistful eyes and pale