She lay for some time--after she had eaten and drunk--glancing at the morning paper, and trying to determine to face the necessary unpleasantness. At last, heaving a sigh of boundless self-pity, she took the envelope in her pretty white hands and opened it. As she read a sudden flush mounted to her very brow. A smothered exclamation broke from her. She was seized with trembling, her heart beat suffocatingly, and with a bound she sprang from bed, rushed to her mirror, and stood there, surveying with sparkling eyes the image of Virginia Mynors at the age of forty-one. Oh, did the mirror lie, or was it true that she was very nearly as pretty as ever? Hardly a silver thread in the beautiful ripe gold hair that had no slightest hint of red in it! The teeth still perfect within the pretty lips, barely discernible crows' feet at the corners of the brilliant, expressive eyes! Plumper she was no doubt, but to be plump prevents wrinkles. As she stood there, even in her disarray, she knew that she did not deceive herself. She was still a most attractive woman. ... And fate had sent her a chance like this! With pulses racing she crept back to her bed and curled up there, trying to decide how best to take advantage of this marvellous coincidence, this strange turn of fortune's wheel. What a good thing that she was a woman of experience, no longer a shy girl. She must not lose this chance, as silly Virginia had lost hers! No, no! She was too clever for that. How well the French wit had said: "_Si la jeunesse savait! Si la vieillesse pouvait!_" In herself, the two states of youth and age were met felicitously. She was old enough to know, young enough to enjoy! If she could not now take hold on circumstance, and wrest her defeat into pure victory, then she was no better than a fool--and she had never thought herself that. All the time she was dressing her lips would part in a smile that revealed those pretty teeth, and a dimple which still lurked in a fold of her smooth cheek. She passed her own plans in review before her mind, pondering--pondering as to how much she would have to tell Virgie. Her excitement was so great that she felt sure she would have to tell most of it. Thrills of anticipation coursed most agreeably through her being. How had she been able to bear it so far--this crushing, stifling existence in an odious little box in a horrid third-rate town? How patient she had been! What a martyrdom she had borne! For the children it was of course different. For her it had been a living burial. Now that it was over--now that she saw a shining gateway admitting her back to the world she loved so well, it seemed incredible that she could have stood it so long.