April 16 Wednesday – Sam wrote from Hartford to Mary Mason Fairbanks, who, in her letter of Apr. 14, scolded Sam for not writing. Sam explained his working “6 days a week—good full days” on the new book, The Gilded Age. This letter established Livy & Susan Warner’s contribution to the collaboration:
Every night for many weeks, Livy & Susie Warner have collected in my study to hear Warner & me read our day’s work; & they have done a power of criticizing, but have always been anxious to be on hand at the reading & find out what has been happening to the dramatis personae since the previous ending. They both pleaded so long & vigorously for Warner’s heroine, that yesterday Warner agreed to spare her life & let her marry—he meant to kill her. I killed my heroine as dead as a mackerel yesterday (but Livy don’t know it yet). Warner may or may not kill her to-day (this is in the “boss” chapter.)…I have an itching desire to get back to my chapter & shake up my heroine’s remains [MTL 5: 339-41].