one of the
family," though certainly not yet accepted as such. The fragmentary
letter that follows reflects something of his pleasant situation.
The Mrs. Fairbanks mentioned in this letter had been something more
than a "shipmother" to Mark Twain. She was a woman of fine literary
taste, and Quaker City correspondent for her husband's paper, the
Cleveland Herald. She had given Mark Twain sound advice as to his
letters, which he had usually read to her, and had in no small
degree modified his early natural tendency to exaggeration and
outlandish humor. He owed her much, and never failed to pay her
tribute.

*****

Fragment of a letter to Mrs. Jane Clemens and family, in St. Louis:

ELMIRA, N.Y. Aug. 26, 1868.

DEAR FOLKS,--You see I am progressing--though slowly. I shall be here
a week yet maybe two--for Charlie Langdon cannot get away until his
father's chief business man returns from a journey--and a visit to Mrs.
Fairbanks, at Cleveland, would lose half its pleasure if Charlie were
not along. Moulton of St. Louis ought to be there too. We three were
Mrs. F's "cubs," in the Quaker City. She took good care that we were at
church regularly on Sundays; at the 8-bells prayer meeting every night;
and she kept our buttons sewed on and our clothing in order--and in a
word was as busy and considerate, and as watchful over her family of
uncouth and unruly cubs, and as patient and as long-suffering, withal,
as a natural mother. So we expect.....

Aug. 25th.

Didn't finish yesterday. Something called me away. I am most comfortably
situated here. This is the pleasantest family I ever knew. I only have
one trouble, and that is they give me too much thought and too much time
and invention to the object of making my visit pass delightfully. It
needs----

Just how and when he left the Langdon home the letters do not
record. Early that fall he began a lecture engagement with James
Redpath, proprietor of the Boston Lyceum Bureau, and his engagements
were often within reach of Elmira. He had a standing invitation now
to the Langdon home, and the end of the week often found him there.
Yet when at last he proposed for the hand of Livy Langdon the
acceptance was by no means prompt. He was a favorite in the Langdon
household, but his suitability as a husban