h his hat
to his lips, as if to leave the field clear for action. Rowland, on the
contrary, wished to avert the coming storm. "You had better not refuse,"
he said to Miss Light, "until you have seen Mr. Hudson's things in the
marble. Your mother is to come and look at some that I possess."

"Thank you; I have no doubt you will see us. I dare say Mr. Hudson is
very clever; but I don't care for modern sculpture. I can't look at it!"

"You shall care for my bust, I promise you!" cried Roderick, with a
laugh.

"To satisfy Miss Light," said the Cavaliere, "one of the old Greeks
ought to come to life."

"It would be worth his while," said Roderick, paying, to Rowland's
knowledge, his first compliment.

"I might sit to Phidias, if he would promise to be very amusing and make
me laugh. What do you say, Stenterello? would you sit to Phidias?"

"We must talk of this some other time," said Mrs. Light. "We are in
Rome for the winter. Many thanks. Cavaliere, call the carriage." The
Cavaliere led the way out, backing like a silver-stick, and Miss Light,
following her mother, nodded, without looking at them, to each of the
young men.

"Immortal powers, what a head!" cried Roderick, when they had gone.
"There 's my fortune!"

"She is certainly very beautiful," said Rowland. "But I 'm sorry you
have undertaken her bust."

"And why, pray?"

"I suspect it will bring trouble with it."

"What kind of trouble?"

"I hardly know. They are queer people. The mamma, I suspect, is the
least bit of an adventuress. Heaven knows what the daughter is."

"She 's a goddess!" cried Roderick.

"Just so. She is all the more dangerous."

"Dangerous? What will she do to me? She does n't bite, I imagine."

"It remains to be seen. There are two kinds of women--you ought to
know it by this time--the safe and the unsafe. Miss Light, if I am not
mistaken, is one of the unsafe. A word to the wise!"

"Much obliged!" said Roderick, and he began to whistle a triumphant air,
in honor, apparently, of the advent of his beautiful model.

In calling this young lady and her mamma "queer people," Rowland but
roughly expressed his sentiment. They were so marked a variation from
the monotonous troop of his fellow-country people that he felt much
curiosity as to the sources of the change, especially since he doubted
greatly whether, on the whole, it elevated the type. For a week he
saw the two ladies driving daily in a well-appointed landau, with the
Ca