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Harte, Bret, 1836-1902

"Drift from Two Shores"


It was scarcely two months after this painful close of her
matrimonial life that one rainy February morning the servant
brought a card to Mrs. Roger Catron, bearing the following
inscription:--

"Richard Graeme Macleod."

Women are more readily affected by names than we are, and there was
a certain Highland respectability about this that, albeit, not
knowing its possessor, impelled Mrs. Catron to send word that she
"would be down in a few moments." At the end of this femininely
indefinite period,--a quarter of an hour by the French clock on the
mantel-piece,--Mrs. Roger Catron made her appearance in the
reception-room. It was a dull, wet day, as I have said before, but
on the Contra Costa hills the greens and a few flowers were already
showing a promise of rejuvenescence and an early spring. There was
something of this, I think, in Mrs. Catron's presence, shown
perhaps in the coquettish bow of a ribbon, in a larger and more
delicate ruche, in a tighter belting of her black cashmere gown;
but still there was a suggestion of recent rain in the eyes, and
threatening weather.


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