time; you work slowly."

"Yes, unfortunately, I work very slowly. One of them took me six weeks,
the other two months."

"Upon my word! The Muse pays you long visits." And Gloriani turned
and looked, from head to foot, at so unlikely an object of her favors.
Singleton smiled and began to wipe his forehead very hard. "Oh, you!"
said the sculptor; "you 'll keep it up!"

A week after his dinner-party, Rowland went into Roderick's studio and
found him sitting before an unfinished piece of work, with a hanging
head and a heavy eye. He could have fancied that the fatal hour foretold
by Gloriani had struck. Roderick rose with a sombre yawn and flung down
his tools. "It 's no use," he said, "I give it up!"

"What is it?"

"I have struck a shallow! I have been sailing bravely, but for the last
day or two my keel has been crunching the bottom."

"A difficult place?" Rowland asked, with a sympathetic inflection,
looking vaguely at the roughly modeled figure.

"Oh, it 's not the poor clay!" Roderick answered. "The difficult place
is here!" And he struck a blow on his heart. "I don't know what 's the
matter with me. Nothing comes; all of a sudden I hate things. My old
things look ugly; everything looks stupid."

Rowland was perplexed. He was in the situation of a man who has been