e
were no visible clouds in his heaven, but there were cloud-shadows on
his mood. Shadows projected, they often were, without his knowing it, by
an undue apprehension that things after all might not go so ideally
well with Roderick. When he understood his anxiety it vexed him, and he
rebuked himself for taking things unmanfully hard. If Roderick chose
to follow a crooked path, it was no fault of his; he had given him, he
would continue to give him, all that he had offered him--friendship,
sympathy, advice. He had not undertaken to provide him with unflagging
strength of purpose, nor to stand bondsman for unqualified success.

If Rowland felt his roots striking and spreading in the Roman soil,
Roderick also surrendered himself with renewed abandon to the local
influence. More than once he declared to his companion that he meant
to live and die within the shadow of Saint Peter's, and that he cared
little if he never again drew breath in American air. "For a man of my
temperament, Rome is the only possible place," he said; "it 's better to
recognize the fact early than late. So I shall never go home unless I am
absolutely forced."

"What is your idea of 'force'?" asked Rowland, smiling. "It seems to me
you have an excellent reason for going home some day or other."

"Ah, you mean my engagement?" Roderick answered with unaverted eyes.
"Yes, I am distinctly engaged, in Northampton, and impatiently waited
for!" And he gave a little sympathetic sigh. "To reconcile Northampton
and Rome is rather a problem. Mary had better come out here. Even at the
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 prese