to clip off the margin
clear across both pages, and now Livy won't perceive that the sheet
isn't the same size it used to was. It was about Aldrich's son, and
I came near forgetting to remove it. It should have been written on a
loose strip and enclosed. That son died on the 5th of March and Aldrich
wrote me on the night before that his minutes were numbered. On the 18th
Livy asked after that patient, and I was prepared, and able to give her
a grateful surprise by telling her "the Aldriches are no longer uneasy
about him."

I do wish I could have been present and heard Charley Clark. When he
can't light up a dark place nobody can.

With lots of love to you all.
MARK.

Mrs. Clemens had her bad days and her good days-days when there
seemed no ray of light, and others that seemed almost to promise
recovery. The foregoing letter to Twichell, and the one which
follows, to Richard Watson Gilder, reflect the hope and fear that
daily and hourly alternated at Villa Quarto

*****

To Richard Watson Gilder, in New York:

VILLA DI QUARTO, FLORENCE,
May 12, '04.

DEAR GILDER,--A friend of ours (the Baroness de Nolda) was here this
afternoon and wanted a note of introduction to the Century, for she has
something to sell to you in case you'll want to make her an offer after
seeing a sample of the goods. I said "With pleasure: get the goods
ready, send the same to me, I will have Jean type-write them, then I
will mail them to the Century and tonight I will write the note to Mr.
Gilder and start it along. Also write me a letter embodying what
you have been saying to me about the goods and your proposed plan of
arranging and explaining them, and I will forward that to Gilder too."

As to the Baroness. She is a German; 30 years old; was married at 17;
is very pretty-indeed I might say very pretty; has a lot of sons (5)
running up from seven to 12 years old. Her husband is a Russian. They
live half the time in Russia and the other half in Florence, and supply
population alternately to the one country and then to the other. Of
course it is a family that speaks languages. This occurs at their
table--I know it by experience: It is Babel come again. The other day,
when no guests were present to keep order, the tribes were all talking
at once, and 6 l