he meant to live freely and largely, and be as interested as occasion
demanded. Rowland saw no reason to regard this as a menace of
dissipation, because, in the first place, there was in all dissipation,
refine it as one might, a grossness which would disqualify it for
Roderick's favor, and because, in the second, the young sculptor was
a man to regard all things in the light of his art, to hand over his
passions to his genius to be dealt with, and to find that he could live
largely enough without exceeding the circle of wholesome curiosity.
Rowland took immense satisfaction in his companion's deep impatience to
make something of all his impressions. Some of these indeed found their
way into a channel which did not lead to statues, but it was none the
less a safe one. He wrote frequent long letters to Miss Garland; when
Rowland went with him to post them he thought wistfully of the
fortune of the great loosely-written missives, which cost Roderick
unconscionable sums in postage. He received punctual answers of a more
frugal form, written in a clear, minute hand, on paper vexatiously thin.
If Rowland was present when they came, he turned away and thought of
other things--or tried to. These were the only moments when his
sympathy halted, and they were brief. For the rest he let the days go by
unprotestingly, and enjoyed Roderick's serene efflorescence as he would
have done a beautiful summer sunrise. Rome, for the past month, had been
delicious. The annual descent of the Goths had not yet begun, and sunny
leisure seemed to brood over the city.

Roderick had taken out a note-book and was roughly sketching a memento
of the great Juno. Suddenly there was a noise on the gravel, and the
young men, looking up, saw three persons advancing. One was a woman
of middle age, with a rather grand air and a great many furbelows. She
looked very hard at our friends as she passed, and glanced back over her
shoulder, as if to hasten the step of a young girl who slowly followed