"Well, yes, some of them were."

"I suppose I may ask what particular form their emotion took?"

"Oh yes, yes; they agree unanimously that you are a brilliant, able man,
a man with a future, and that you would make about the worst husband on
record."

The applicant for favor had a forlorn look.

"There's nothing very evasive about that," he said:

There was a period of reflective silence. It was probably no more than a
few seconds, but it seemed longer.

"Haven't you any other friend that you could suggest?" Langdon said.

"Apparently none whose testimony would be valuable."

Jervis Langdon held out his hand. "You have at least one," he said. "I
believe in you. I know you better than they do."

And so came the crown of happiness. The engagement of Samuel Langhorne
Clemens and Olivia Lewis Langdon was ratified next day, February 4,
1869.

But if the friends of Mark Twain viewed the idea of the marriage with
scant favor, the friends of Miss Langdon regarded it with genuine
alarm. Elmira was a conservative place--a place of pedigree and family
tradition; that a stranger, a former printer, pilot, miner, wandering
journalist and lecturer, was to carry off the daughter of one of the
oldest and wealthiest families, was a thing not to be lightly permitted.
The fact that he had achieved a national fame did not count
against other considerations. The social protest amounted almost to
insurrection, but it was not availing. The Langdon family had their
doubts too, though of a different sort. Their doubts lay in the fear
that one, reared as their daughter had been, might be unable to hold a
place as the wife of this intellectual giant, whom they felt that the
world was preparing to honor. That this delicate, sheltered girl could
have the strength of mind and body for her position seemed hard to
believe. Their faith overbore such questionings, and the future years
proved how fully it was justified.

To his mother Samuel Clemens wrote:

She is only a little body, but she hasn't her peer in Christendom.
I gave her only a plain gold engagement ring, when fashion
imperatively demands a two-hundred-dollar diamond one, and told her
it was typical of her future life-namely, that she would have to
flourish on substance, rather than luxuries (but you see I know the
girl--she don't care anything about luxuries).... She spends no
money but her astral year's allowance, and spends nearly every cent