Hartford, May 28, ’89.  Susie dear, I want you to tell this to Theodore.  You know how absent-minded Twichell is, and how desolate his face is when he is in that frame.  At such times, he passes the word with a friend on the street and is not aware of the meeting at all.  Twice in a week, our Clara had this latter experience with him within the past month.  But the second instance was too much for her, and she woke him up, in his tracks, with a reproach.  She said: 

“Uncle Joe, why do you always look as if you were just going down into the grave, when you meet a person on the street?”—­and then went on to reveal to him the funereal spectacle which he presented on such occasions.  Well, she has met Twichell three times since then, and would swim the Connecticut to avoid meeting him the fourth.  As soon as he sights her, no matter how public the place nor how far off she is, he makes a bound into the air, heaves arms and legs into all sorts of frantic gestures of delight, and so comes prancing, skipping and pirouetting for her like a drunken Indian entering heaven.

With a full invoice of love from us all to you and Theodore.

S. L. C.

The reference in the next to the “closing sentence” in a letter written by Howells to Clemens about this time, refers to a heart-broken utterance of the former concerning his daughter Winnie, who had died some time before.  She had been a gentle talented girl, but never of robust health.  Her death had followed a long period of gradual decline.

To W. D. Howells, in Boston: 

Hartford, Judy 13, ’89.  Dear Howells,—­I came on from Elmira a day or two ago, where I left a house of mourning.  Mr. Crane died, after ten months of pain and two whole days of dying, at the farm on the hill, the 3rd inst:  A man who had always hoped for a swift death.  Mrs. Crane and Mrs. Clemens and the children were in a gloom which brought back to me the days of nineteen years ago, when Mr. Langdon died.  It is heart-breaking to see Mrs. Crane.  Many a time, in the past ten days, the sight of her has reminded me, with a pang, of the desolation which uttered itself in the closing sentence of your last letter to me.  I do see that there is an argument against suicide:  the grief of the worshipers left behind; the awful famine in their hearts, these are too costly terms for the release.

I shall be here ten days yet, and all alone:  nobody in the house but the servants.  Can’t Mrs. Howells spare you to me?  Can’t you come and stay with me?  The house is cool and pleasant; your work will not be interrupted; we will keep to ourselves and let the rest of the world do the same; you can have your choice of three bedrooms, and you will find the Children’s schoolroom (which was built for my study,) the perfection of a retired and silent den for work.  There isn’t a fly or a mosquito on the estate.  Come—­say you will.