She sighed her frustrations.

a premunitory process

Two coots and a pintail flew low over the stream and splash-landed a few yards away.

It was flood-tide along Fifth Avenue; motor, brougham, and victoria swept by on the glittering current; pretty women glanced out from limousine and tonneau; young men of his own type, silk-hatted, frock-coated, the crooks of their walking sticks tucked up under their left arms, passed on the Park side.