appealing glance and a timorous "Really?"

But before Rowland could respond, Mr. Striker again intervened. "Do
I fully apprehend your expression?" he asked. "Our young friend is to
become a great man?"

"A great artist, I hope," said Rowland.

"This is a new and interesting view," said Mr. Striker, with an
assumption of judicial calmness. "We have had hopes for Mr. Roderick,
but I confess, if I have rightly understood them, they stopped short of
greatness. We should n't have taken the responsibility of claiming
it for him. What do you say, ladies? We all feel about him here--his
mother, Miss Garland, and myself--as if his merits were rather in the
line of the"--and Mr. Striker waved his hand with a series of fantastic
flourishes in the air--"of the light ornamental!" Mr. Striker bore his
recalcitrant pupil a grudge, but he was evidently trying both to be
fair and to respect the susceptibilities of his companions. But he was
unversed in the mysterious processes of feminine emotion. Ten minutes
before, there had been a general harmony of sombre views; but on hearing
Roderick's limitations thus distinctly formulated to a stranger, the two
ladies mutely protested. Mrs. Hudson uttered a short, faint sigh, and
Miss Garland raised her eyes toward their advocate and visited him with
a short, cold glance.

"I 'm afraid, Mrs. Hudson," Rowland pursued, evading the discussion
of Roderick's possible greatness, "that you don't at all thank me for
stirring up your son's ambition on a line which leads him so far from
home. I suspect I have made you my enemy."