"Yes, I am distinctly engaged, in Northampton, and impatiently waited
for!" And he gave a little sympathetic sigh. "To reconcile Northampton
and Rome is rather a problem. Mary had better come out here. Even at the
worst I have no intention of giving up Rome within six or eight years,
and an engagement of that duration would be rather absurd."
"Miss Garland could hardly leave your mother," Rowland observed.
"Oh, of course my mother should come. I think I will suggest it in my
next letter. It will take her a year or two to make up her mind to it,
but if she consents it will brighten her up. It 's too small a life,
over there, even for a timid old lady. It is hard to imagine," he added,
"any change in Mary being a change for the better; but I should like her
to take a look at the world and have her notions stretched a little. One
is never so good, I suppose, but that one can improve a little."
"If you wish your mother and Miss Garland to come," Rowland suggested,
"you had better go home and bring them."
"Oh, I can't think of leaving Europe, for many a day," Roderick
answered.
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