She looked at the morning sunlight coming between the white slants of her curtains, an airy flutter of her new dress from the closet, her valedictory, tied with a white satin ribbon, on the stand, and she saw quite plainly all which had led up to this, and to her, Ellen Brewster; and she saw also the inevitableness of its passing, the precious valedictory being laid away and buried beneath a pile of future ones; she saw the crowd of future valedictorians advancing like a flock of white doves in their white gowns, when hers was worn out, and its beauty gone, pressing forward, dimming her to her own vision.

She saw how she would come to look calmly and coldly upon all that filled her with such joy and excitement to-day; how the savor of the moment would pass from her tongue, and she said to herself that she would always remember this moment.
Then suddenly--since she had in herself an impetus of motion which nothing, not even reflection, could long check--she saw quite plainly a light beyond, after all this should have passed, and the leaping power of her spirit to gain it.

And then, since she was healthy, and given only at wide intervals to these Eastern lapses of consciousness from the present, she was back in her day, and alive to all its importance as a part of time.
She felt the bounding elation of tossing on the crest of her wave of success, and the full rainbow glory of it dazzled her eyes.

She was first in her class, she was valedictorian, she had a beautiful dress, she was young, she was first.

It is a poor spirit, and one incapable of courage in defeat, who feels not triumph in victory.
Ellen was triumphant and confident.