Mark Twain’s trips to Boston were usually made alone.  Women require more preparation to go visiting, and Mrs. Clemens and Mrs. Howells seem to have exchanged visits infrequently.  For Mark Twain, perhaps, it was just as well that his wife did not always go with him; his absent-mindedness and boyish ingenuousness often led him into difficulties which Mrs. Clemens sometimes found embarrassing.  In the foregoing letter they were planning a visit to Cambridge.  In the one that follows they seem to have made it—­with certain results, perhaps not altogether amusing at the moment.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Oct. 4, ’75.  My dear Howells,—­We had a royal good time at your house, and have had a royal good time ever since, talking about it, both privately and with the neighbors.

Mrs. Clemens’s bodily strength came up handsomely under that cheery respite from household and nursery cares.  I do hope that Mrs. Howells’s didn’t go correspondingly down, under the added burden to her cares and responsibilities.  Of course I didn’t expect to get through without committing some crimes and hearing of them afterwards, so I have taken the inevitable lashings and been able to hum a tune while the punishment went on.  I “caught it” for letting Mrs. Howells bother and bother about her coffee when it was “a good deal better than we get at home.”  I “caught it” for interrupting Mrs. C. at the last moment and losing her the opportunity to urge you not to forget to send her that Ms when the printers are done with it.  I “caught it” once more for personating that drunken Col.  James.  I “caught it” for mentioning that Mr. Longfellow’s picture was slightly damaged; and when, after a lull in the storm, I confessed, shame-facedly, that I had privately suggested to you that we hadn’t any frames, and that if you wouldn’t mind hinting to Mr. Houghton, &c., &c., &c., the Madam was simply speechless for the space of a minute.  Then she said: 

“How could you, Youth!  The idea of sending Mr. Howells, with his sensitive nature, upon such a repulsive er—­”

“Oh, Howells won’t mind it!  You don’t know Howells.  Howells is a man who—­” She was gone.  But George was the first person she stumbled on in the hall, so she took it out of George.  I was glad of that, because it saved the babies.

I’ve got another rattling good character for my novel!  That great work is mulling itself into shape gradually.

Mrs. Clemens sends love to Mrs. Howells—­meantime she is diligently
laying up material for a letter to her. 
                              Yrs ever
          
                              Mark.