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 F