the worst as a mere sporadic piece of disorder, without roots in his
companion's character. They passed a fortnight looking at pictures
and exploring for out the way bits of fresco and carving, and Roderick
recovered all his earlier fervor of appreciation and comment. In Rome he
went eagerly to work again, and finished in a month two or three small
things he had left standing on his departure. He talked the most joyous
nonsense about finding himself back in his old quarters. On the first
Sunday afternoon following their return, on their going together to
Saint Peter's, he delivered himself of a lyrical greeting to the great
church and to the city in general, in a tone of voice so irrepressibly
elevated that it rang through the nave in rather a scandalous fashion,
and almost arrested a procession of canons who were marching across to
the choir. He began to model a new statue--a female figure, of which he
had said nothing to Rowland. It represented a woman, leaning lazily back
in her chair, with her head drooping as if she were listening, a vague
smile on her lips, and a pair of remarkably beautiful arms folded in her
lap. With rather less softness of contour, it would have resembled the
noble statue of Agrippina in the Capitol. Rowland looked at it and was
not sure he liked it. "Who is it? what does it mean?" he asked.

"Anything you please!" said Roderick, with a certain petulance. "I call
it A Reminiscence."

Rowland then remembered that one of the Baden ladies had been
"statuesque," and asked no more questions. This, after all, was a way of
profiting by experience. A few days later he took his first ride of
the season on the Campagna, and as, on his homeward way, he was passing
across the long shadow of a ruined tower, he perceived a small figure
at a short distance, bent over a sketch-book. As he drew near, he
recognized his friend Singleton. The honest little painter's face was