She had achieved her independence by her audacious and most dangerous enterprise.

She had gone through strange nervous trials and spiritual experiences which had matured her more rapidly than years of common life would have done.

She had got back her health, bringing with it a riper wealth of womanhood.

She had found her destiny in the consciousness that she inherited the beauty belonging to her blood, and which, after sleeping for a generation or two as if to rest from the glare of the pageant that follows beauty through its long career of triumph, had come to the light again in her life, and was to repeat the legends of the olden time in her own history.
Myrtle's wardrobe had very little of ornament, such as the modistes of the town would have thought essential to render a young girl like her presentable.

There were a few heirlooms of old date, however, which she had kept as curiosities until now, and which she looked over until she found some lace and other convertible material, with which she enlivened her costume a little for the evening.