ry history.

XXVIII.

OLIVIA LANGDON. WORK ON THE "INNOCENTS"

Certainly this was a momentous period in Mark Twain's life. It was a
time of great events, and among them was one which presently would come
to mean more to him than all the rest--the beginning of his acquaintance
with Olivia Langdon.

One evening in late December when Samuel Clemens had come to New York to
visit his old "Quaker City" room-mate, Dan Slote, he found there other
ship comrades, including Jack Van Nostrand and Charlie Langdon. It was a
joyful occasion, but one still happier followed it. Young Langdon's
father and sister Olivia were in New York, and an evening or two later
the boy invited his distinguished "Quaker City" shipmate to dine with
them at the old St. Nicholas Hotel. We may believe that Samuel Clemens
went willingly enough. He had never forgotten the September day in the
Bay of Smyrna when he had first seen the sweet-faced miniature--now, at
last he looked upon the reality.

Long afterward he said: "It was forty years ago. From that day to this
she has never been out of my mind."

Charles Dickens gave a reading that night at Steinway Hall. The Langdons
attended, and Samuel Clemens with them. He recalled long after that
Dickens wore a black velvet coat with a fiery-red flower in his
buttonhole, and that he read the storm scene from "David Copperfield"
--the death of James Steerforth; but he remembered still more clearly the
face and dress and the slender, girlish figure of Olivia Langdon at his
side.

Olivia Langdon was twenty-two years old at this time, delicate as the
miniature he had seen, though no longer in the fragile health of her
girlhood. Gentle, winning, lovable, she was the family idol, and Samuel
Clemens was no less her worshiper from the first moment of their meeting.

Miss Langdon, on her part, was at first rather dazed by the strange,
brilliant, handsome man, so unlike anything she had known before. When
he had gone, she had the feeling that something like a great meteor had
crossed her sky. To her brother, who was eager for her good opinion of
his celebrity, she admitted her admiration, if not her entire approval.
Her father had no doubts. With a keen sense of humor and a deep
knowledge of men, Jervis Langdon was from that first evening the devoted
champion of Mark Twain. Clemens saw Miss Langdon again during the
holidays, and by the week's end he had planned to visit Elmira--soon.
But fate managed differe