Still in the same even voice Clemens said: 

“To the elevator.”

He passed out of the room, with Boyesen behind him, into the hall.  The elevator was just coming up, and as they reached it, it stopped at their landing, and Mrs. Boyesen stepped out.  She had been delayed by a breakdown and a blockade.  Clemens said afterward that he had a positive conviction that she would be on the elevator when they reached it.  It was one of those curious psychic evidences which we find all along during his life; or, if the skeptics prefer to call them coincidences, they are privileged to do so.

    Paris, June 1, 1879.  Still this vindictive winter continues.  Had a
    raw, cold rain to-day.  To-night we sit around a rousing wood fire.

They stood it for another month, and then on the 10th of July, when it was still chilly and disagreeable, they gave it up and left for Brussels, which he calls “a dirty, beautiful (architecturally), interesting town.”

Two days in Brussels, then to Antwerp, where they dined on the Trenton with Admiral Roan, then to Rotterdam, Dresden, Amsterdam, and London, arriving there the 29th of July, which was rainy and cold, in keeping with all Europe that year.

    Had to keep a rousing big cannel-coal fire blazing in the grate all
    day.  A remarkable summer, truly!

London meant a throng of dinners, as always:  brilliant, notable affairs, too far away to recall.  A letter written by Mrs. Clemens at the time preserves one charming, fresh bit of that departed bloom.

Clara [Spaulding] went in to dinner with Mr. Henry James; she enjoyed him very much.  I had a little chat with him before dinner, and he was exceedingly pleasant and easy to talk with.  I had expected just the reverse, thinking one would feel looked over by him and criticized.

Mr. Whistler, the artist, was at the dinner, but he did not attract me.  Then there was a lady, over eighty years old, a Mrs. Stuart, who was Washington Irving’s love, and she is said to have been his only love, and because of her he went unmarried to his grave. —­[Mrs. Clemens was misinformed.  Irving’s only “love” was a Miss Hoffman.]—­She was also an intimate friend of Madame Bonaparte.  You would judge Mrs. Stuart to be about fifty, and she was the life of the drawing-room after dinner, while the ladies were alone, before the gentlemen came up.  It was lovely to see such a sweet old age; every one was so fond of her, every one deferred to her, yet every one was joking her, making fun of her, but she was always equal to the occasion, giving back as bright replies as possible; you had not the least sense that she was aged.  She quoted French in her stories with perfect ease and fluency, and had all the time such a kindly, lovely way.  When she entered the room, before dinner, Mr. James, who was then talking with me, shook hands with her and said, “Good evening, you wonderful lady.”  After she had passed . . . he said, “She is the youngest person in London.  She has the youngest feelings and the youngest interests . . . .  She is always interested.”

    It was a perfect delight to hear her and see her.