June 7 Tuesday – “The Clemenses, the Charles Dudley Warners, and Grace Elizabeth King boarded a train and traveled to Frederick E. Church’s “Olana,”his imposing mansion near Hudson, New York” [MTNJ 3: 293n227]. (Editorial emphasis.) Church was a painter. Grace King wrote of the trip later that day to May King McDowell, another sister.

Mark Twain sat off and read in a corner of the car. He was rather disgusted because we all exclaimed on entering the car how hot it was & begged to have the windows put up — “If a lot of women were sent to hell, the first thing they would want to do would be to open the windows” he grumbled to CDW…[Bush 33].

 Note: Sam and Grace King met two days prior, on June 5. Her letter to her sister of that day specified a “Tuesday start for the Churches…” [Bush 33].

King went on in her letter to describe the “magnificence of the Moorish Victorian eyrie” [33]; and also of Livy’s dinner dress,

…a picturesque tunic of white crepe with a satin stripe in it, if you can conceive of such a thing, over a heavy ended white silk — trimmed with pearl passementerie. [34]

And of course, Sam dressed up, at least for a time.

Mark started in very correctly in full evening dress — but soon after dinner was over he shuffled in amongst us in slippers with a big pipe in his mouth…. I came through the library after a while to hunt up the others & found Clemens reading some antique book. I showed him the beautiful picture [one of Church’s she’d seen on her way to the library]. Then found the others. We consorted…until 10 oc — when of course the married women proposed retiring…[34].