Both consciously and unconsciously she was drinking it all in, knowing that never again would she feel like this. Never again would the earth seem so wholly hers, set as a background for her personal joy. Never again would she loom so large, or tread so buoyantly with royal feet. This was the perfect day of her whole life, and she could not expect to have it repeated. Perhaps on some fine September evening a touch of the ecstasy might return, but though it would always be thrilling, it could never be quite the same. It would be looking back on the beautiful moment instead of living it, breathing it in. No power on earth could bring her the actual moment back. By that time it would have receded among those memories of life which lie bathed in a golden light, but which, lovely and comforting though they be, lack the magic grip of the great hour. Yet, just ever so small a twist of Fate’s easily-twirled wheel, and all the wonder and beauty might have fallen to Martha Jane! Things _did_ happen like that, as she knew very well, impossible as it seemed to her at the present moment. The crown _did_ fall on the wrong head, the sceptre thrust itself obstinately into the wrong hand. Now that she realised the supreme greatness of the occasion, Mrs. Clapham could not help feeling innocently thankful that it had not been wasted on Martha Jane. Not that it _could_ have been, of course—not by her newly proved rightness of things—she recognised that. What seemed more than a little strange, looking back, was that Martha Jane should not have recognised it too.