CHAPTER XXVIII

Susy

IN PARIS I spoke of getting "dusted off" (lectured by
Mrs. Clemens). Susy took up the phrase and was always
seeing to it that Mamma did it before functions. "Mamma
don't forget to dust him," and "Did you dust Papa offf"

She was intense. That was her marked characteristic,

Livy arrived after a year, at Elmira, by the very same
train and at the same hour that she had left there a year
before, with Susy on the platform, waving good-bye; and
now Susy was lying in her coffin at the Langdon home.1

It is pleasant to know that while we were far away
around the globe, Susy got a letter in Hartford which
mightily pleased her from the great Madame Blanche
Caccamesi saying (in substance) "I hear that the reason
you did not stay and complete your vocal education is
that your father was financially embarrassed and could
not afford it. I would have completed it for you gratis for
the sake of bringing out your noble voice and giving it to
the world. I should have been repaid twice over."

She was very near-sighted. When she was little I was
going upstairs with her, and I looked back when halfway
up and through the dining-room door I saw the cat curled
up like a worm on the intensely red cover of the round

1 For the story of Susy's death the reader is referred to My Fatter,
Mark Twain, by Clara Clemens, chapter XII, and to Mark Twain
—a BiografAy, chapter CXCIII.

3H