The bride opening the ball with Sir Hugo was necessarily the cynosure of all eyes; and less than a year before, if some magic mirror could have shown Gwendolen her actual position, she would have imagined herself moving in it with a glow of triumphant pleasure, conscious that she held in her hands a life full of favorable chances which her cleverness and spirit would enable her to make the best of. 
A year before, if some magic mirror could have shown Gwendolen her position, she would have imagined herself in a glow of triumphant pleasure, ready to make the best of her cleverness and spirit in her new life. 