ore than thirty thousand volumes
had been sold. It was a book of travel; its lowest price was three and a
half dollars; the record has not been equaled since. In England also
large editions had been issued, and translations into foreign languages
were under way. It was and is a great book, because it is a human book
--a book written straight from the heart.

If Mark Twain had not been famous before, he was so now. Indeed, it is
doubtful if any other American author was so widely known and read as the
author of "The Innocents Abroad" during that first half-year after its
publication.

Yet for some reason he still did not regard himself as a literary man.
He was a journalist, and began to look about for a paper which he could
buy-his idea being to establish a business and a home. Through Mr.
Langdon's assistance, he finally obtained an interest in the "Buffalo
Express," and the end of the year 1869 found him established as its
associate editor, though still lecturing here and there, because his
wedding-day was near at hand and there must be no lack of funds.

It was the 2d of February, 1870, that Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon
were married. A few days before, he sat down one night and wrote to
Jim Gillis, away out in the Tuolumne Hills, and told him of all his good
fortune, recalling their days at Angel's Camp, and the absurd frog story,
which he said had been the beginning of his happiness. In the five years
since then he had traveled a long way, but he had not forgotten.

On the morning of his wedding-day Mark Twain received from his publisher
a check for four thousand dollars, his profit from three months' sales of
the book, a handsome sum.

The wedding was mainly a family affair. Twichell and his wife came over
from Hartford--Twichell to assist Thomas K. Beecher in performing the
ceremony. Jane Clemens could not come, nor Orion and his wife; but
Pamela, a widow now, and her daughter Annie, grown to a young lady,
arrived from St. Louis. Not more than one hundred guests gathered in the
stately Langdon parlors that in future would hold so much history for
Samuel Clemens and Olivia Langdon--so much of the story of life and death
that thus made its beginning there. Then, at seven in the evening, they
were married, and the bride danced with her father, and the Rev. Thomas
Beecher declared she wore the longest gloves he had ever seen.

It was the next afternoon that the wedding-party set out for Buffalo.
Through a M