RODERICK HUDSON
his tendency to close one of them at a time for emphasis; she was dressed as if to sit for her photograph and remained for a long time with Roderick on a little promontory overhanging the lake. Mrs. Hudson kept all day a little meek apprehensive smile. She was afraid of an "accident," though unless Miss Striker (who indeed was a little of a romp) should push Roderick into the lake it was hard to see what accident could occur. Mrs. Hudson was as neat and crisp and uncrumpled at the end of the festival as at the beginning. Mr. Whitefoot, who but a twelve month later became a convert to Episcopacy and was already cultivating a certain sonority of private discourse, devoted himself to Cecilia. He had a little book in his pocket, out of which he read to her at intervals, lying stretched at her feet; and it was a lasting joke with Cecilia afterwards that she would never tell what Mr. Whitefoot's little book had been. Rowland had placed himself near Miss Garland while the feasting went forward on the grass. She wore a so-called gypsy hat—a little straw hat tied down over her ears, so as to cast her eyes into shadow, by a ribbon passing outside of it. When the company dispersed after lunch he proposed to her to take, in spite of Roderick's beasts and monsters, a stroll in the wood. She hesitated a moment and looked at Mrs. Hudson as if for permission to leave her. But Mrs. Hudson was listening to Mr. Striker, who sat gossiping to her with relaxed consistency, his waistcoat unbuttoned and his hat on his nose.
"You can give your cousin your society at any
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