The art editor, who dimly remembered her as a very quiet, reserved young girl, wondered at the transformation when she came into his office, looking like the very incarnation of Joy. She had been afraid of the stern, forbidding man before, saying to Henrietta that she always expected him to bark at her. But to-day, to her own surprise as well as his, she found herself telling him her good news, just as she had poured it out to the janitor's wife, because she couldn't help it. That his congratulations should be quite as hearty as Mrs. Phelan's caused her no surprise then, for at the moment Jack's recovery seemed such a miracle that she felt the whole world must be interested in hearing of it. But she wondered afterwards what he must have thought of her for pouring out her confidences to him about Jack as impulsively as if he had been an old friend instead of a stranger. Had she only known it, that impulsive outburst aroused a friendly interest in her that the reserved man rarely felt in struggling young artists, and he bought all the sketches she had with her. An hour before, that of itself would have been enough to send her back to the studio rejoicing; but now it seemed such a drop in the bucket compared to the news she had for Mrs. Boyd and Lucy and Henrietta, that she forgot to mention the little matter of the sale for several days. There was some delay in the transmission of Betty's message. It did not reach her until nearly sundown. She was passing through the lower hall on the way to the drawing-room, when the envelope was put into her hands. The house suddenly seemed to grow stifling. She needed all out of doors to breathe in. So running down the marble steps to the river, she walked along to the circular seat surrounding the old willow. With the tree between herself and the Hall, she looked out across the Potomac, that a gorgeous sunset was turning into a river of gold. The slip of paper fluttered in her fingers but she feared to read it. Such life-long tragedies can be told sometimes in the short space of ten words. But at last she summoned courage to glance at the message, after which she read it through slowly, several times. Then looking up above the shining of the river to the glory of the sunset sky beyond, she whispered softly, as she had always done since she was a little child, in the great moments of her life, "_Thank you, dear God!_"