She herself went into the library. Down in the next block she saw the postman, and thought she would wait for him. She felt all unnerved this morning. Things were happening which she did not understand, and then she felt so "left out of things." She wanted to do things for Karl; she would love to hover over him while he was not well, but he seemed to prefer being let alone; and as for Dr. Parkman, there was no sense in his adopting so short and professional a manner with her. But as she stood there by the window, the bright morning sunlight fell upon her ruby, and she smiled. She loved her ring so! It was so dear of Karl to get it for her. The warm, deep lights in it seemed to symbolise their love, and it would always be associated with that first night she had worn it, that beautiful hour when they sat together before the fire. That had been its baptism in love. The postman was at the door now, and she hurried to meet him. She was much interested in the mail these days, for surely she would hear any time now regarding her picture in Paris. It had come! The topmost letter had a foreign stamp, and she recognised the writing of Laplace. Heart beating very fast, she started up to her studio. She wanted to be up there, all by herself, when she read this letter. As she passed Karl's door she heard Dr. Parkman telling about having punctured a tire on his machine the night before. Of course then everything really was all right, or he would not have talked about trivial things like that. Her fingers fumbled so that she could scarcely open the envelope. And then she tried to laugh herself out of that, prepare for disappointment. Why, what in the world did she expect? As she read the letter her face went very white, her fingers trembled more and more. Then she had to go back and read it sentence by sentence. It was too much to take in all at once. It was not so much that it had been awarded a medal; not so much that a great London collector--Laplace said he was the most discriminating collector he knew--wanted to buy it. The overwhelming thing was that the critics of Paris treated it as something entitled to their very best consideration. The medal and the sale might have come by chance, but something about these clippings he had enclosed seemed to stand for achievement. They said that "The Hidden Waterfall," by a young American artist, was one of the most live and individual things of the exhibition. They mentioned things in her work which were poor--but not one of them passed her over lightly! She grew very quiet as she sat there thinking about it. The consciousness of it surged through and through her, but she sat quite motionless. It seemed too big a thing for mere rejoicing. For what it meant Was that the years had not played her false. It meant the justification--exaltation--of something her inmost self.