Page:Morley--Travels in Philadelphia.djvu/111

 Until very recent years an old lady was living, a neighbor of Mrs. Owens, who remembered how Virginia Poe used to sit at the window and play her harp.

The house is well and solidly built; the door opening toward Brandywine street still has its original old-fashioned bolt lock, which Poe's hand must have fastened many and many a time. The little dining room has a fireplace, now filled in with a stove. In one of the rooms upstairs (according to local tradition) "The Raven" was written; and there are two bedrooms with casement windows in the attic. Some of Poe's finest work was done in this house, among other tales probably "The Murders in the Rue Morgue," "The Gold Bug" and "The Black Cat." And here a curious coincidence may be noted. It will be remembered that in the story of "The Black Cat" Poe describes how some very unpleasant digging was done in a cellar. In cleaning the cellar of the Brandywine street house Mrs. Owens discovered recently a place where the bricks in the flooring had been removed and a section of planking had been put in. Is it possible that this circumstance suggested to Poe the grisly theme of his story? Just for fun I would very much like to explore under those boards. They are old and have evidently been there a long time.

Imagination likes to conjure up the little household: the invalid Virginia Poe (it was in this house that she broke a blood vessel while singing), the