At length, lifting her head, and, perhaps, for the first time realizing that she was alone and might indulge her impulses without restraint, she abruptly threw from her the folds of the embroidery, and stood erect. Why should she longer trifle with that weak affair of velvet and dyes? Who was the poor, inanimate, and tearful statue in the next room, to order her to complete those tasks? What to herself were the past deeds of the Vanni, that they should be perpetuated in ill-fashioned tapestry, to be hung around a gilded banquet hall? By the gods! she would from that day make a new history in the family life; and it should be recorded, not with silken threads upon embroidered velvet, but should be engraved deeply and ineffaceably upon human hearts! Standing motionless in the centre of the room, with one foot upon the half-completed tapestry, she now for the first time, and in a flash of inspiration, gave shape and comeliness to her previously confusedly arranged ideas. Until the present moment she had had but little thought of accomplishing anything beyond skilfully availing herself of her natural attractions so as to climb from her menial position into something a little better and higher. If, in the struggle to raise herself from the degradation of slavery, she were obliged to engage in a rivalry with her mistress, and, by robbing her of the affection naturally belonging to her, were to crush her to the earth, it was a thing to be deplored, but it must none the less be done. She might, perhaps, pity the victim, but the sacrifice must be accomplished all the same. But now these vague dreams of a somewhat better lot, to be determined by future chance circumstances, rolled away like a shapeless cloud, and left in their place one bright image as the settled object of her ambition. So lofty, so dazzling seemed the prize, that another person would have shrunk in dismay from even the thought of striving for it, and even she, for the moment, recoiled. But she was of too determined a nature to falter long. The higher the object to be attained the fewer would be the competitors, and the greater the chance of success to unwearying determination. And if there were but one chance of success in a thousand, it were still worth the struggle.