RODERICK HUDSON
sented but the perfection of an attitude. This had been attentively studied—it was rendered with charming truth. Rowland demanded more light, dropped his head on this side and that, uttered vague exclamations. He said to himself, as he had said more than once in the Louvre and the Vatican, "We ugly mortals, what beautiful creatures we are!" Nothing for a long time had given him so much pleasure. "Hudson—Hudson," he asked again; "who may Hudson be?"
"A young man of this very place," said Cecilia.
"A young man? How young?"
"I suppose he 's three or four and twenty."
"Of this very place, you say—of Northampton, Massachusetts?"
"He lives here, but his people belong to Virginia."
"Is he a sculptor then by profession?"
"Oh, no—he 's studying Law."
Rowland burst out laughing. "He has found something in Blackstone that I never did. He makes statues like this then simply for his pleasure?"
Cecilia, with a smile, gave a little toss of her head. "He makes them perhaps sometimes for mine!"
"I congratulate you," said Rowland, "on having so generous a provider. I wonder if he could be induced to do anything for a mere man."
"For you? Oh, this was a matter of friendship. I saw the figure when he had modelled it in clay, and of course I greatly admired it. He said nothing at the time, but a week ago, on my birthday, he arrived in a buggy, with his treasure done up in a morsel of old blanket. He had had it cast at the
18
