At twenty-eight she was her own mistress, earning an independent income through the use of her beautiful voice. The teaching days and the drudgery of the class-room had passed, and as a concert singer she was favorably known in more than one western city noted for its critical taste. After a successful winter in Milwaukee and Chicago, she was now upon her way to fulfil an engagement in Baltimore, which promised more than anything in which she had yet engaged. She was in the heyday of her powers, admired, in radiant health, conscious of her beauty and talent, and entirely satisfied with life. What did it mean that, as she looked from the window with a proud smile upon her lips, some tantalizing thoughts should intrude themselves, and the mind so entirely self-poised should feel, for the first time in years, the weakening influence of some emotional fancies? It was her boast that she was never lonely, never sad, that her whole heart was in the work. The conductor passed through taking tickets, and brought her back to the present. And after this came the little stir of the porter making up the berths, and she moved to the end of the car. In front two men were talking. "Never saw a promise of a worse storm," said one. "Shouldn't wonder if the tracks were blocked a little ahead." "Comes from the southwest," suggested the other. "If necessary, they'll put on another locomotive. We're bound to get through at any rate on this train; that's one comfort." By nine o'clock Margaret, enveloped in a downy wrapper of dark red, lay courting sleep in her section. Over her was spread the fur ulster, none too warm above the blankets, even for her warm blood. The thermometer outside would have registered zero, and whiffs of icy air found their way every now and then into the car. Everything was quiet save her thoughts, which began to utter themselves with loud, importunate voices, as if answering some call without, independent of her control. "I have happily been able to say all my life that I didn't know what nerves were," said Margaret to herself, "but I begin to think that from some inexplicable cause I am nervous."