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.