If I do not mistake I first met Poe one night at your house.' And a very extraordinary night it was, St.George," said Richard, lifting his eyes from the sheet.

"Poe, if you remember, read one of his stories for us, and both Latrobe and Kennedy were so charmed that they talked of nothing else for days." St.George remembered so clearly that he could still recall the tones of Poe's voice, and the peculiar lambent light that flashed from out the poet's dark eyes--the light of a black opal.

He settled himself back in his chair to enjoy the treat the better.

This was the kind of talk he wanted to-day, and Richard Horn, of all others, was the man to conduct it.
The inventor's earnestness and the absorbed look on St.George's and Harry's faces, and the fact that Horn was about to read aloud, had attracted the attention of several near-by members, who were already straining their ears, for no one had Richard's gift for reading.
In low, clear tones, his voice rising in intensity as the weird pathos of the several stanzas gripped his heart, he unfolded the marvellous drama until the very room seemed filled with the spirit of both the man and the demon.

Every stanza in his clear enunciation seemed a separate string of sombre pearls, each syllable aglow with its own inherent beauty.