. Some day or other, I 'm sure, she will judge
fairly and wisely of everything."

"Stay a bit!" cried Roderick; "you 're a better Catholic than the Pope.
I shall be content if she judges fairly of me--of my merits, that is.
The rest she must not judge at all. She 's a grimly devoted little
creature; may she always remain so! Changed as I am, I adore her none
the less. What becomes of all our emotions, our impressions," he went
on, after a long pause, "all the material of thought that life pours
into us at such a rate during such a memorable three months as these?
There are twenty moments a week--a day, for that matter, some days--that
seem supreme, twenty impressions that seem ultimate, that appear to
form an intellectual era. But others come treading on their heels and
sweeping them along, and they all melt like water into water and settle
the question of precedence among themselves. The curious thing is that
the more the mind takes in, the more it has space for, and that all
one's ideas are like the Irish people at home who live in the different
corners of a room, and take boarders."

"I fancy it is our peculiar good luck that we don't see the limits of
our minds," said Rowland. "We are young, compared with what we may one
day be. That belongs to youth; it is perhaps the best part of it. They
say that old people do find themselves at last face to face with a solid
blank wall, and stand thumping against it in vain. It resounds, it seems
to have something beyond it, but it won't move! That 's only a reason
for living with open doors as long as we can!"

"Open doors?" murmured Roderick. "Yes, let us close no doors that open
upon Rome. For this, for the mind, is eternal summer! But though my
doors may stand open to-day," he presently added, "I shall see no
visitors. I want to pause and breathe; I want to dream of a statue.
I have been working hard for three months; I have earned a right to a
reverie."

Rowland, on his side, was not without provision for reflection, and
they lingered on in broken, desultory talk. Rowland felt the need for
intellectual rest, for a truce to present care for churches, statues,
and pictures, on even better grounds than his companion, inasmuch as
he had really been living Roderick's intellectual life the past three
months, as well as his own. As he looked back on these full-flavored
weeks, he drew a long breath of satisfaction, almost of relief.
Roderick, thus far, had justified his confide