objection; you offer plenty. It is
the nature of the work that is the objection--a kind of work which I
could not do well enough to satisfy me. To multiply the price by twenty
would not enable me to do the work to my satisfaction, & by consequence
would make no impression upon me.

Once he allowed himself to be interviewed for the Herald, when from Mr.
Rogers's yacht he had watched Sir Thomas Lipton's Shamrock go down to
defeat; but this was a subject which appealed to him--a kind of
hotweather subject--and he could be as light-minded about it as he chose.

CCXXXIX

THE LAST SUMMER AT ELMIRA

The Clemenses were preparing to take up residence in Florence, Italy. The
Hartford house had been sold in May, ending forever the association with
the city that had so long been a part of their lives. The Tarrytown
place, which they had never occupied, they also agreed to sell, for it
was the belief now that Mrs. Clemens's health would never greatly prosper
there. Howells says, or at least implies, that they expected their
removal to Florence to be final. He tells us, too, of one sunny
afternoon when he and Clemens sat on the grass before the mansion at
Riverdale, after Mrs. Clemens had somewhat improved, and how they "looked
up toward a balcony where by and by that lovely presence made itself
visible, as if it had stooped there from a cloud. A hand frailly waved a
handkerchief; Clemens ran over the lawn toward it, calling tenderly." It
was a greeting to Howells the last he would ever receive from her.

Mrs. Clemens was able to make a trip to Elmira by the end of June, and on
the 1st of July Mr. Rogers brought Clemens and his wife down the river on
his yacht to the Lackawanna pier, and they reached Quarry Farm that
evening. She improved in the quietude and restfulness of that beloved
place. Three weeks later Clemens wrote to Twichell:

Livy is coming along: eats well, sleeps some, is mostly very gay, not
very often depressed; spends all day on the porch, sleeps there a part of
the night; makes excursions in carriage & in wheel-chair; &, in the
matter of superintending everything & everybody, has resumed business at
the old stand.

During three peaceful months she spent most of her days reclining on the
wide veranda, surrounded by those dearest to her, and looking out on the
dreamlike landscape--the long, grassy slope, the drowsy city, and the
distant hills--getting strength for the far journey by sea. Clemens did
som