dine with her earlier than usual, and that they would take a sail
down the bay.

Brief as it was, it breathed an almost lover-like fondness and
happiness. She enjoyed her first exultant thrill at her sense of
power as she comprehended that he had gone to his work that day a
stronger and more hopeful man.

She went out to do her shopping, and was soon in a Broadway temple
of fashion, but found that she was no longer a worshipper. A week
before the beautiful fabrics would have absorbed her mind and awakened
intense desires, for she had a passion for dress, and few knew how
to make more of it than she. But a new and stronger passion was
awakening. She was made to feel at last that she had not only a
woman's lovely form and features, but a woman's mind. Now she began
to dream of triumphs through the latter, and her growing thought was
how to achieve them. Not that she was indifferent to her costume;
it should be like the soldier's accoutrements; her mind the weapon.

As is common with the young to whom any great impulse or new, deep
experience comes, she was absorbed by it, and could think of little
else. She went over her father's words again and again, dwelling on
the last utterance, which had contained the truth uppermost in all
that he had said,--"Develop the best in your own nature naturally."

What was her own nature, her starting-point? Her introspection
was not very reassuring. She felt that perhaps the most hopeful
indication was her strong rebound from what she at last recognized
as mean and unworthy. She also had a little natural curiosity and
vanity to see if her face was changing with changing motives. Was