If ever I
cherished an ill-feeling for Miss Mamie, I forgave her
now; so brave and kind, so pretty and venturesome, was
her decision. The weather frowned overhead with a
leaden sky, and San Francisco had never (in all my
experience) looked so bleak and gaunt, and shoddy and
crazy, like a city prematurely old; but through all my
wanderings and errands to and fro, by the dockside or
in the jostling street, among rude sounds and ugly
sights, there ran in my mind, like a tiny strain of
music, the thought of my friend's happiness.
For that was indeed a day of many and incongruous
occupations. Breakfast was scarce swallowed before Jim
must run to the City Hall and Frank's about the cares
of marriage, and I hurry to John Smith's upon the
account of stores, and thence, on a visit of
certification, to the NORAH CREINA. Methought she
looked smaller than ever, sundry great ships
overspiring her from close without. She was already a
nightmare of disorder; and the wharf alongside was
piled with a world of casks and cases and tins, and
tools and coils of rope, and miniature barrels of giant
powder, such as it seemed no human ingenuity could
stuff on board of her.
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