And where to begin?
The page was blank, and waiting for its first record; so this was indeed a momentous day.
Her thoughts drifted back, stage by stage, over her career.

As far as the long highway receded over the plain of her life, it was lined with the gilded and pillared splendors of her ambition all crumbled to ruin and ivy-grown; every milestone marked a disaster; there was no green spot remaining anywhere in memory of a hope that had found its fruition; the unresponsive earth had uttered no voice of flowers in testimony that one who was blest had gone that road.
Her life had been a failure.

That was plain, she said.

No more of that.
She would now look the future in the face; she would mark her course upon the chart of life, and follow it; follow it without swerving, through rocks and shoals, through storm and calm, to a haven of rest and peace or shipwreck.

Let the end be what it might, she would mark her course now -- to-day--and follow it.
On her table lay six or seven notes.