His was not an unruffled courtship.  When at last he reached the point of proposing for the daughter of the house, neither the daughter nor the household offered any noticeable encouragement to his suit.  Many absurd anecdotes have been told of his first interview with Mr. Langdon on the subject, but they are altogether without foundation.  It was a proper and dignified discussion of a very serious matter.  Mr. Langdon expressed deep regard for him and friendship but he was not inclined to add him to the family; the young lady herself, in a general way, accorded with these views.  The applicant for favor left sadly enough, but he could not remain discouraged or sad.  He lectured at Cleveland with vast success, and the news of it traveled quickly to Elmira.  He was referred to by Cleveland papers as a “lion” and “the coming man of the age.”  Two days later, in Pittsburgh (November 19th), he “played” against Fanny Kemble, the favorite actress of that time, with the result that Miss Kemble had an audience of two hundred against nearly ten times the number who gathered to hear Mark Twain.  The news of this went to Elmira, too.  It was in the papers there next morning; surely this was a conquering hero —­a gay Lochinvar from out of the West—­and the daughter of the house must be guarded closely, that he did not bear her away.  It was on the second morning following the Pittsburgh triumph, when the Langdon family were gathered at breakfast, that a bushy auburn head poked fearfully in at the door, and a low, humble voice said: 

“The calf has returned; may the prodigal have some breakfast?”

No one could be reserved or reprovingly distant, or any of those unfriendly things with a person like that; certainly not Jervis Langdon, who delighted in the humor and the tricks and turns and oddities of this eccentric visitor.  Giving his daughter to him was another matter, but even that thought was less disturbing than it had been at the start.  In truth, the Langdon household had somehow grown to feel that he belonged to them.  The elder sister’s husband, Theodore Crane, endorsed him fully.  He had long before read some of the Mark Twain sketches that had traveled eastward in advance of their author, and had recognized, even in the crudest of them, a classic charm.  As for Olivia Langdon’s mother and sister, their happiness lay in hers.  Where her heart went theirs went also, and it would appear that her heart, in spite of herself, had found its rightful keeper.  Only young Langdon was irreconciled, and eventually set out for a voyage around the world to escape the situation.

There was only a provisional engagement at first.  Jervis Langdon suggested, and Samuel Clemens agreed with him, that it was proper to know something of his past, as well as of his present, before the official parental sanction should be given.  When Mr. Langdon inquired as to the names of persons of standing to whom he might write for credentials, Clemens pretty confidently gave him the name of the Reverend Stebbins and others of San Francisco, adding that he might write also to Joe Goodman if he wanted to, but that he had lied for Goodman a hundred times and Goodman would lie for him if necessary, so his testimony would be of no value.  The letters to the clergy were written, and Mr. Langdon also wrote one on his own account.