"If I offer no further opposition to your waiting for Miss Light's marriage," he said, "will you promise, meanwhile and afterwards, for a certain period, to defer to my judgment--to say nothing that may be a cause of suffering to Miss Garland ?" "For a certain period?
What period ?" Roderick demanded.
"Ah, don't drive so close a bargain! Don't you understand that I have taken you away from her, that I suffer in every nerve in consequence, and that I must do what I can to restore you ?" "Do what you can, then," said Roderick gravely, putting out his hand.
"Do what you can!" His tone and his hand-shake seemed to constitute a promise, and upon this they parted.
Roderick's bust of his mother, whether or no it was a discharge of what he called the filial debt, was at least a most admirable 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.