e to understand the meaning of things, the
apparent ownership and completeness of possession.

At last the young wife put her hand upon his arm:

"Don't you understand, Youth," she said; that was always her name for
him. "Don't you understand? It is ours, all ours--everything--a gift
from father!"

But even then he could not grasp it; not at first, not until Mr. Langdon
brought a little box and, opening it, handed them the deeds.

Nobody quite remembers what was the first remark that Samuel Clemens made
then; but either then or a little later he said:

"Mr. Langdon, whenever you are in Buffalo, if it's twice a year, come
right here. Bring your bag and stay overnight if you want to. It
sha'n't cost you a cent!"

They went in to supper then, and by and by the guests were gone and the
young wedded pair were alone.

Patrick McAleer, the young coachman, who would grow old in their employ,
and Ellen, the cook, came in for their morning orders, and were full of
Irish delight at the inexperience and novelty of it all. Then they were
gone, and only the lovers in their new house and their new happiness
remained.

And so it was they entered the enchanted land.

LXXV

AS TO DESTINY

If any reader has followed these chapters thus far, he may have wondered,
even if vaguely, at the seeming fatality of events. Mark Twain had but
to review his own life for justification of his doctrine of inevitability
--an unbroken and immutable sequence of cause and effect from the
beginning. Once he said:

"When the first living atom found itself afloat on the great Laurentian
sea the first act of that first atom led to the second act of that first
atom, and so on down through the succeeding ages of all life, until, if
the steps could be traced, it would be shown that the first act of that
first atom has led inevitably to the act of my standing here in my
dressing-gown at this instant talking to you."

It seemed the clearest presentment ever offered in the matter of
predestined circumstance--predestined from the instant when that primal
atom felt the vital thrill. Mark Twain's early life, however imperfectly
recorded, exemplifies this postulate. If through the years still ahead
of us the course of destiny seems less clearly defined, it is only
because thronging events make the threads less easy to trace. The web
becomes richer, the pattern more intricate and confusing, but the line of
fate neither breaks nor falters, to the end