altered manner. Henceforth, the question should be not what
awaited her, but how she should show her strength in face of the
opposition she now expected to meet from this clear-minded, amply
equipped lawyer and judge she had called to her aid.

"A task for his equal, not for an ignorant, untried woman like
myself," she thought; and, following another of her impulses, she
leaped from her seat at the table and rushed across to her dresser
on which she placed two candles, one at her right and another at
her left. Then she sat down between them and in the stillness of
midnight surveyed herself in the glass, as she might survey the
face of a stranger.

What did she see? A countenance no longer young, and yet with some
of the charm of youth still lingering in the brooding eyes and in
the dangerous curves of a mobile and expressive mouth. But it was
not for charm she was looking, but for some signs of power quite
apart from that of sex. Did her face express intellect,
persistence and, above all, courage? The brow was good;--she would
so characterise it in another. Surely a woman with such a forehead
might do something even against odds. Nor was her chin weak;
sometimes she had thought it too pronounced for beauty; but what
had she to do with beauty now? And the neck so proudly erect! the
heaving breast! the heart all aflame! Defeat is not for such; or
only such defeat as bears within it the germ of future victory.

Is her reading correct? Time will prove. Meanwhile she will have
confidence in herself, and that this confidence might be well
founded she decided to spend the rest of the night in formulating
her plans and laying out her imaginary campaign.