Today I came across a book dedication to Twain that I was surprised to find. This appears as the dedication in Bessie and Marie Van Vorst's book, The Woman Who Toils, Being the Experiences of Two Gentlewomen as Factory Girls (NY: Doubleday, Page & Co., 1903): To Mark Twain In loving tribute to his genius, and to his human sympathy, which in Pathos and Seriousness, as well as in Mirth and Humour, have made him kin with the whole world :-- this book is inscribed by Bessie and Marie Van Vorst There is a Jan. 1, 1902, letter from Marie Van Vorst to SLC listed in the online database of Clemens letters but I don't know of any other connection between them. Does anyone know of any other contact between them? It may be that they just thought of Twain as they were working on the book. They were well-off society women who pretended to be factory and mill workers to gain experience of working conditions for women and children. They might have thought of themselves as "princesses and paupers." Jim Zwick