worst I have no intention of giving up Rome within six or eight years,
and an engagement of that duration would be rather absurd."

"Miss Garland could hardly leave your mother," Rowland observed.

"Oh, of course my mother should come. I think I will suggest it in my
next letter. It will take her a year or two to make up her mind to it,
but if she consents it will brighten her up. It 's too small a life,
over there, even for a timid old lady. It is hard to imagine," he added,
"any change in Mary being a change for the better; but I should like her
to take a look at the world and have her notions stretched a little. One
is never so good, I suppose, but that one can improve a little."

"If you wish your mother and Miss Garland to come," Rowland suggested,
"you had better go home and bring them."

"Oh, I can't think of leaving Europe, for many a day," Roderick
answered. "At present it would quite break the charm. I am just
beginning to profit, to get used to things and take them naturally. I am
sure the sight of Northampton Main Street would permanently upset me."

It was reassuring to hear that Roderick, in his own view, was but
"just beginning" to spread his wings, and Rowland, if he had had
any forebodings, might have suffered them to be modified by this
declaration. This was the first time since their meeting at Geneva that
Roderick had mentioned Miss Garland's name, but the ice being broken, he
indulged for some time afterward in frequent allusions to his
betrothed, which always had an accent of scrupulous, of almost studied,
consideration. An uninitiated observer, hearing him, would have imagined
her to be a person of a certain age--possibly an affectionate maiden