"Don't you like Cadge?" she asked, checking with shy evasiveness the words I would have spoken. "She can do anything--sing, talk modern Greek and Chinese--Cadge is wonderful." "I know some one more wonderful. Helen, when did you begin to sing?" "I don't sing; to-night was the first time I ever tried before any one but Kitty. Did I sing well?" "I can't believe you're real! I can't--" "Don't! Don't!" she laughed. "Remember your promise." And with that she ran away from the door where I stood, and I came directly home. Home, to set down these notes; to wonder; to doubt; to pinch myself and try to believe that I am alive. I am alive. This that I have written is the truth! This is what I have seen and heard since a common, puffing railroad train brought me from the West and set me down in the land of miracles. It is the truth; but out of that magic presence I cannot--I am as powerless to believe as I am powerless to doubt. God help me--it is the truth! BOOK II. THE BIRTH OF THE BUTTERFLY. (_From the Autobiography of Helen Winship_.) CHAPTER I THE PSYCHOLOGICAL MOMENT No. 2 Union Square, December 14. I am the most beautiful woman in the world! I feel like a daughter of the gods. Bewildered, amazed, at times incredulous of my good fortune--but happy, happy, happy! There is no joy in heaven or earth like the joy of being beautiful--incomparably beautiful! It's such a never-ending surprise and delight that I come out of my musings with a start, a dozen times a day, and shudder to think: "What if it were only a dream!" Happy? I have no faith in the old wives' fables that we are most miserable when we get what we want. It isn't true that the weak and poor are to be envied beyond the powerful. Ask the fortunate if they would change! I wouldn't; not for the Klondike? I'm so happy! I want to take into my confidence the whole world of women. I want them to know how the gift was gained that they are some day to share. I want them to know that there are still good fairies in the world; and how I was fated to meet one, how he waved his wand over me and how my imperfections fled. Every woman will read the story of my life with rapt attention because of the Secret. I shall tell that last of all. Now it's my own. Is it true that I have longed for beauty more passionately than most women; or is it only that I know myself, not the others? I can remember the time, away back, when the longing began--when I was---- Incredible! Was I ever an ugly little girl, careless of my appearance, happiest in a torn and dirty dress; and homely, homely, homely? Oh, miracle! The miracle! They say all girls begin life thus heedless of beauty; but none get far along the road before they meet the need of it. So it was with me; and now I love to recall every pitiful detail of the beginning of the Quest of Beauty, the funny little tragedy of childhood that changed the current of my life--and of your lives, all you women who read.