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90 forget herself, she (Agatha) could only offer her other cheek to be smitten—filled her sister with remorse.

"Would you like that hat-pin?" she said.

Agatha looked at the ornament, saw that it had pearls on it, and swallowed her indignation with a smile. "Are you sure you don't want it yourself, dear?"

So peace was restored.

Apart from the fact that her husband had been dead little more than a fortnight, and conventionality demanded that she should retire more or less from the public view for the present, or, as Agatha suggested, go abroad, Cynthia's visit to the Museum did not fill Lady Theodosia, nor the Dowager Lady Cargill, with any great surprise. Cynthia went to the Museum frequently; so frequently, in fact, that Lady Cargill—prepared for the heathenish always in the case of her daughter-in-law—almost feared that she went there for the purpose of worshipping the Pagan gods. Lady Theodosia simply explained it as a "fancy." Agatha called it affectation. Cynthia, herself, said it was a rest.

If they had seen her that particular morning, wandering through the long galleries like some uneasy spirit, they would have thought that her idea of rest was somewhat inadequate. Her unusual height and grace, her deep mourning, and what her maid called "her way of putting on her clothes," attracted considerable attention from the intelligent public, who were scattered in thin groups through the various rooms. One man, who happened to be entering as she crossed the front hall, felt his heart leap at the sight of her. Then she turned her head in his