grotesque figures on cards with numerous legs and arms and other
fantastic symbols end features to fix the length of some king's reign.
For William the Conqueror, for instance, who reigned twenty-one years, he
drew a figure of eleven legs and ten arms. It was the proper method of
impressing facts upon the mind of a child. It carried him back to those
days at Elmira when he had arranged for his own little girls the game of
kings. A Miss Wallace, a friend of Margaret's, and usually one of the
pedestrian party, has written a dainty book of those Bermudian days.
--[Mark Twain and the Happy Islands, by Elizabeth Wallace.]

Miss Wallace says:

Margaret felt for him the deep affection that children have for an
older person who understands them and treats them with respect. Mr.
Clemens never talked down to her, but considered her opinions with a
sweet dignity.

There were some pretty sequels to the shell incident. After Mark Twain
had returned to New York, and Margaret was there, she called one day with
her mother, and sent up her card. He sent back word, saying:

"I seem to remember the name; but if this is really the person whom
I think it is she can identify herself by a certain shell I once
gave her, of which I have the other half. If the two halves fit, I
shall know that this is the same little Margaret that I remember."

The message went down, and the other half of the shell was promptly sent
up. Mark Twain had the two half-shells incised firmly in gold, and one
of these he wore on his watch-fob, and sent the other to Margaret.

He afterward corresponded with Margaret, and once wrote her:

I'm already making mistakes. When I was in New York, six weeks ago,
I was on a corner of Fifth Avenue and I saw a small girl--not a big
one--start across from the opposite corner, and I exclaimed to
myself joyfully, "That is certainly my Margaret!" so I rushed to
meet her. But as she came nearer I began to doubt, and said to
myself, "It's a Margaret--that is plain enough--but I'm afraid it is
somebody else's." So when I was passing her I held my shell so she
couldn't help but see it. Dear, she only glanced at it and passed
on! I wondered if she could have overlooked it. It seemed best to
find out; so I turned and followed and caught up with her, and said,
deferentially; "Dear Miss, I already know your first name by the
look of you, but would you mind