le production.
Rowland, at the time it was finished, met Gloriani one evening, and this
unscrupulous genius immediately began to ask questions about it. "I am
told our high-flying friend has come down," he said. "He has been doing
a queer little old woman."

"A queer little old woman!" Rowland exclaimed. "My dear sir, she is
Hudson's mother."

"All the more reason for her being queer! It is a bust for terra-cotta,
eh?"

"By no means; it is for marble."

"That 's a pity. It was described to me as a charming piece of
quaintness: a little demure, thin-lipped old lady, with her head on
one side, and the prettiest wrinkles in the world--a sort of fairy
godmother."

"Go and see it, and judge for yourself," said Rowland.

"No, I see I shall be disappointed. It 's quite the other thing, the
sort of thing they put into the campo-santos. I wish that boy would
listen to me an hour!"

But a day or two later Rowland met him again in the street, and, as
they were near, proposed they should adjourn to Roderick's studio.
He consented, and on entering they found the young master. Roderick's
demeanor to Gloriani was never conciliatory, and on this occasion
supreme indifference was apparently all he had to offer. But Gloriani,
like a genuine connoisseur, cared nothing for his manners; he cared only
for his skill. In the bust of Mrs. Hudson there was something almost
touching; it was an exquisite example of a ruling sense of beauty. The
poor lady's small, neat, timorous face had certainly no great character,
but Roderick had reproduced its sweetness, its mildness, its minuteness,
its still maternal passion, with the most unerring art. It was perfectly
unflattered, and yet admirably tender; it was the poetry of fidelity.
Gloriani stood looking at it a long time most intently. Roderick
wandered away into the neighboring room.

"I give it up!" said the sculptor at last. "I don't understand it."

"But you like it?" said Rowland.

"Like it? It 's a pearl of pearls. Tell me this," he added: "is he very
fond of his mother; is he a very good son?" And he gave Rowland a sharp
look.

"Why, she adores him," said Rowland, smiling.

"That 's not an answer! But it 's none of my business. Only if I, in his
place, being suspected of having--what shall I call it?--a cold heart,
managed to do that piece of work, oh, oh! I should be called a pretty
lot of names. Charlatan, poseur, arrangeur! But he can do as he chooses!
My dear young man, I