invitation until he had returned with his MS. from California.
Then, through young Charles Langdon, his Quaker City shipmate, he
was invited to Elmira. The invitation was given for a week, but
through a subterfuge--unpremeditated, and certainly fair enough in
a matter of love-he was enabled to considerably prolong his visit.
By the end of his stay he had become really "like 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.

Part 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