elids, openly regretted
that the deceased had not been hanged, to which Mrs. Walker Catron
responded that, "Thank Heaven, they were spared at least that
disgrace!" and so sent conviction into the minds of her hearers.

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. As she
entered the room, the sun came out, too, and revealed the prettiness
and delicacy of her figure, and I regret to state, also, the somewhat
obtrusive plainness of her visitor.

"I knew ye'd be sorter disapp'inted at first, not gettin' the regular
bearings o' my name, but I'm 'Captain Dick.' Mebbe ye've heard your
husband--that is, your husband ez waz, Roger Catron--speak o' me?"

Mrs. Catron, feeling herself outraged and deceived in belt, ruche, and
ribbon, freezingly admitted that she had heard of him before.

"In course," said the captain; "why, Lord love ye, Mrs. Catron,--ez
waz,--he used to be all the time talkin' of ye. And allers in a free,
easy, confidential way. Why, one night--don't ye remember?--when he
came home, carryin', mebbee, more canvas than was seamanlike, and you
shet him out the house, and laid for him with a broomstick, or one o'
them crokay mallets, I disremember which, and he kem over to me, ole
Captain Dick, and I sez to him, sez I, 'Why, Roger, them's only love
pats, and yer condishun is such ez to make any woman mad-like.' Why,
Lord bless ye! there ain't enny of them mootool diffe