Private & Confidential.

Well, here is our romance.

It happened in this way. One morning, a month ago—no, three weeks— Livy, & Clara Spaulding & I were at breakfast, at 10 A. M., & I was in an irritable mood, for the barber was up stairs waiting & his hott water getting cold, when the colored George returned from answering the bell & said—

“There’s a lady in the drawing room wants to see you.”

“A book agent!” says I, with heat. “I won’t see her; I will die in my tracks, first.”

Then I got up with a soul full of rage, & went in there & bent scowling over that person, & began a succession of rude & raspy questions—& without even offering to sit down.

E Not even the defendant’s youth & beauty & timi (apparent) Ⓐemendation (seeming) timidity were able to modify my savagery, for a time.—& meantime question & answer were going on. She had risen to her feet with the first question; & there she stood, with her pretty face bent floorward whilst I inquired, but always with her honest eyes looking me in the face when it came her turn to answer.

And this was her tale, & her plea—diffidently stated, but straightforwardly; & bravely, & most winningly simply & earnestly: I put it in my own fashion, for I do not remember her words:

Mr. Karl Gerhardt, who works in Pratt & Whitney’s machine shops, has made a statue in clay, & would I be so kind as to come & look at it, & tell him if there is any promise in it? He has none to go to, & he would be so glad.

“O, dear me,” I said, “I don’t know anything about art—there’s nothing I could tell him.”

But she went on, just as earnestly as & as simply as before, with her plea—& so she did after repeated rebuffs; & dull as I am, even I began by & by, to admire this brave & gentle persistence, & to perceive how her heart of hearts was in this thing, & how she couldn’t give it up, but must carry her point. So at last I wavered, & promised in general terms that I would come down the first day that fell idle—& as I conducted her to the door, I tamed more & more, & said I would come during the very next week—“We shall be so glad—but—but, would you please come early in the week?—the statue is just finished, & we are so anxious—&—&—we did hope you could come this week—and”——well, I came down another peg, & said I would come Monday, as sure as death; & before I got to the dining room remorse was doing its work & I was saying to myself, “Damnation, how can a man be such a hound?—why th didn’t I go with her now?” Yes, & how mean I should have felt if I had known that out of her poverty she had hired a hack & brought it along to convey me. But luckily for what was left of my peace of mind, I didn’t know that.

Well, it appears that from here she went to Charley Warner’s. There was a better light, there, & the lo eloquence of her face had a better chance to do its office. Warner fought, as I had on done; & he was in the midst of an article & very busy; but no matter, she won him completely. He laid aside his MS & said, “Come, let us go & see your father’s statute. That is—is he your father?” “No, he is my husband.” So this child was married, you see.

This was a Saturday. Next day Warner came to dinner, & said, “Go!— go tomorrow—don’t fail.” He was in love with the girl, & with her husband, too. And he said he believed there was merit in the statue. Pretty crude work, maybe, but merit in it.

Patrick & I hunted up the place, next day; the girl saw us driving up, & flew down stairs & received me. Her quarters were the second story of a little wooden house—another family on the ground floor. The husband was at the machine-shop, the wife kept no servant; she was there alone. She had a little parlor, with a chair or two & a sofa; & the artist-husband’s hand was visible in a couple of plaster busts, one of the wife, the other of a neighbor’s child; visible also, in a couple of water colors, of flowers & birds; an ambitious unfinished portrait of the wife in oils; some paint-decorations of the pine mantel; & an ade excellent human ear, done in some plastic material at 16.

Then we went into the neat kitchen, & the girl flew around, with enthusiasm, & snatched rag after rag from a tall something in the corner, & presently there stood the clay statue, life size—a graceful girlish creature, life size, nude to the waist, & holding up a single garment with one hand—the expression attempted being m a modified scare—she was interrupted when about to enter the bath.

Then this young wife posed herself alongside the image & so remained—a thing I didn’t understand. But presently I did—then I said—

“O, it’s you!”

“ “Yes,” she said, “I was the model. He has no model but me. I have stood for this, many & many an hour—& you can’t think how it does tire one! But I don’t mind it. He works all day at the shop; & then, nights & Sundays he works on his statue as long as I can keep up.”

She got a big chisel, to use as a lever, & between us we managed to twist the pedestal round & round, so as to afford a view of the statue from all points. Well, sir, it was perfectly charming, this girl’s innocence & purity—exhibiting her naked self, as it were, to a stranger & alone, & never once dreaming that there was the slightest indelicacy about the matter. And so there wasn’t; but it will be many a long day before I run across another woman who can do the like & show no trace of self-consciousness.

Well, then we sat down, & I took a smoke, & she told me all about her people in Massachusetts—her father is a physician & it is an old & respectable family—(I am able to believe anything she says.) And she told me how “Karl” is 26 years old; & how he has had passionate longings all his life, toward art, but has always been poor & obliged to struggle for his daily bread; & how he felt sure that if he could only have one or two lessons in—

“Lessons? Hasn’t he had any lessons?”

No. He had never had a lesson.

And presently it was dinner time, & “Karl” arrived—a fello slender young fellow with a marvelous head & a noble eye—& he was as simple, & natural, & as beautiful in spirit as his wife was. But she had to do the talking—mainly—there was too much thought behind his cavernous eyes for glib speech.

I went home enchanted. Told Livy & Clara all about the $350 pe paradise down yonder where those two enthusiasts are happy with a yearly expense of $350. Livy & Clara went there next day & came away enchanted. A few nights later the Gerhardts kept there p their promise & came here for the evening. It was billiard night & I had company & so was not down; but Livy & Clara became more charmed with these children than ever.

Warner & I planned to get somebody to criticise the statue whose judgment would be worth something. So I laid for Champney, & after two failures I captured him & took him around; & he said “this statue is full of faults—but it has merits enough in it to make up for them”—whereat the young wife danced around as delighted as a child. When we came away, Champney said, “I did not want to say too much there, but the truth is, it seems to me an extraordinary performance for an untrained hand. You ask if there is promise enough there, to justify the Hartford folk in going to the expense of training this young man. I should say, yes, decidedly; but still, to make everything safe, you had better get the judgment of a sculptor.”

Warner was in New York. I wrote him, & he said he would fetch up Ward—which he did. Yesterday they went to the Gerhardts & spent 2 hours, & Ward came away bewitched with those people & marveling at the winning innocence of the young wife, who dropped naturally into her model-attitude beside the statue (which is stark naked from head to heel, now—G. had removed the drapery, fearing Ward would think he was afraid to try legs & hips) just as she has always done before.

Livy & I had two long talks with Ward yesterday evening. He spoke strongly. He said, “if any stranger had told me that this appremntice did not model that thing from plaster casts, I would not have believed it—I couldn’t have believed it.” He said, “it is full of crudities, but it is full of genius, too. It is such a statue as the man of average talent would achieve after two years’ training in the schools. And the boldness of the fellow, in going straight at nature! He is an apprentice—his work shows that, all over; but the stuff is in him, sure. Hartford must send him to Paris;—two years; then if the promise holds good, keep him there 3 more—& warn him to study, study, work, work, & keep his name out of the papers, & neither ask for orders nor accept them when offered.”

Well, you see, that’s all we wanted. After Ward was gone Livy came out with the thing that was in my mind. She said, “Go privately & start the Gerhardts off to Paris, & say nothing about it to any one else.”

So I tramped down this morning in the snow-storm——& there was a stirring time. They will sail a week or ten days from now.

As I was starting out at the front door, with Gerhardt beside me & the young wife dancing & jubilating behind, this latter cried out impulsively, “Tell Mrs. Clemens I want to hug her—I want to hug you both!”

I gave them my old French book, & they are going to tackle the language, straight off.

Now this letter is a secret—keep it quiet—I don’t think Livy would mind my telling you these things, but then she might, you know, for she is a queer girl.