the mother was silly and
that the daughter was not. The mother had a very silly mouth--a mouth,
Rowland suspected, capable of expressing an inordinate degree of
unreason. The young girl, in spite of her childish satisfaction in her
poodle, was not a person of feeble understanding. Rowland received an
impression that, for reasons of her own, she was playing a part. What
was the part and what were her reasons? She was interesting; Rowland
wondered what were her domestic secrets. If her mother was a daughter
of the great Republic, it was to be supposed that the young girl was a
flower of the American soil; but her beauty had a robustness and tone
uncommon in the somewhat facile loveliness of our western maidenhood.
She spoke with a vague foreign accent, as if she had spent her life in
strange countries. The little Italian apparently divined Rowland's mute
imaginings, for he presently stepped forward, with a bow like a master
of ceremonies. "I have not done my duty," he said, "in not announcing
these ladies. Mrs. Light, Miss Light!"

Rowland was not materially the wiser for this information, but Roderick
was aroused by it to the exercise of some slight hospitality. He altered
the light, pulled forward two or three figures, and made an apology
for not having more to show. "I don't pretend to have anything of an
exhibition--I am only a novice."

"Indeed?--a novice! For a novice this is very well," Mrs. Light
declared. "Cavaliere, we have seen nothing better than this."

The Cavaliere smiled rapturously. "It is stupendous!" he murmured. "And
we have been to all the studios."

"Not to all--heaven forbid!" cried Mrs. Light. "But to a number that I
have had pointed out by artistic friends. I delight in studios: they are
the temples of the beautiful here below. And if you are a novice, Mr.
Hudson," she went on, "you have already great admirers. Half a dozen
people have told us that yours were among the things to see." This
gracious speech went unanswered; Roderick had already wandered across to
the other side of the studio and was revolving about Miss Light. "Ah, he
's gone to look at my beautiful daughter; he is not the first that
has had his head turned," Mrs. Light resumed, lowering her voice to
a confidential undertone; a favor which, considering the shortness of
their acquaintance, Rowland was bound to appreciate. "The artists are
all crazy about her. When she goes into a studio she is fatal to the
pictures. And when she