A Lost Lady

"A Lost Lady" is the portrait of a frontier woman who reflects the conventions of her age even as she defies them. To the people of Sweet Water, a fading railroad town on the Western plains, Mrs. Forrester is the resident aristocrat, gracious and comfortably remote. To Niel Herbert, who falls in love with her as a boy and becomes her confidant as a man, she is by turns steadfast and faithless, dazzling and pathetic. In her subtle portrait of Marian Forrester, Cather created one of her most memorable and finely drawn characters.