ion, Fanny well recalled, that Maggie, one day, long
before, and under her own attendance precisely, had, for the glory of
the name she bore, paid a visit to one of the ampler shrines of the
supreme exhibitory temple, an alcove of shelves charged with the
gold-and-brown, gold-and-ivory, of old Italian bindings and consecrated
to the records of the Prince's race. It had been an impression that
penetrated, that remained; yet Maggie had sighed, ever so prettily, at
its having to be so superficial. She was to go back some day, to dive
deeper, to linger and taste; in spite of which, however, Mrs. Assingham
could not recollect perceiving that the visit had been repeated. This
second occasion had given way, for a long time, in her happy life, to
other occasions--all testifying, in their degree, to the quality of her
husband's blood, its rich mixture and its many remarkable references;
after which, no doubt, the charming piety involved had grown, on still
further grounds, bewildered and faint.

It now appeared, none the less, that some renewed conversation with Mr.
Crichton had breathed on the faintness revivingly, and Maggie mentioned
her purpose as a conception of her very own, to the success of which
she designed to devote her morning. Visits of gracious ladies, under his
protection, lighted up rosily, for this perhaps most flower-loving and
honey-sipping member of the great Bloomsbury hive, its packed passages
and cells; and though not sworn of the province toward which his friend
had found herself, according to her appeal to him, yearning again,
nothing was easier for him than to put her in relation with the
presiding urbanities. So it had been settled, Maggie said to Mrs.
Assingham, and she was to dispense with Amerigo's company. Fanny was to
remember later on that she had at first taken this last fact for one of
the finer notes of her young woman's detachment, imagined she must be
going alone because of the shade of irony that, in these ambiguous days,
her husband's personal presence might be felt to confer, practically, on
any tribute to his transmitted significance. Then as, the next
moment, she felt it clear that so much plotted freedom was virtually
a refinement of reflection, an impulse to commemorate afresh whatever
might still survive of pride and hope, her sense of ambiguity happily
fell and she congratulated her companion on having anything so exquisite
to do and on being so exquisitely in the humour to do it. Af