CHAPTER XX.
THE FIRST LIE Mrs.Cosgrove was a childless widow, with sufficient means and a very mixed multitude of acquaintances.

In the general belief her marriage had been a happy one; when she spoke of her deceased husband it was with respect, and not seldom with affection.

Yet her views on the matrimonial relation were known to be of singular audacity.

She revealed them only to a small circle of intimates; most of the people who frequented her house had no startling theories to maintain, and regarded their hostess as a good-natured, rather eccentric woman, who loved society and understood how to amuse her guests.
Wealth and position were rarely represented in her drawing-room; nor, on the other hand, was Bohemianism.

Mrs.Cosgrove belonged by birth and marriage to the staid middle class, and it seemed as if she made it her object to provide with social entertainment the kind of persons who, in an ordinary way, would enjoy very little of it.