Rowland always enjoyed meeting him; talking with him, in these days,
was as good as a wayside gush of clear, cold water, on a long, hot walk.
There was, perhaps, no drinking-vessel, and you had to apply your lips
to some simple natural conduit; but the result was always a sense of
extreme moral refreshment. On this occasion he mentally blessed the
ingenuous little artist, and heard presently with keen regret that he
was to leave Rome on the morrow. Singleton had come to bid farewell
to Saint Peter's, and he was gathering a few supreme memories. He had
earned a purse-full of money, and he was meaning to take a summer's
holiday; going to Switzerland, to Germany, to Paris. In the autumn he
was to return home; his family--composed, as Rowland knew, of a father
who was cashier in a bank and five unmarried sisters, one of whom gave
lyceum-lectures on woman's rights, the whole resident at Buffalo, New
York--had been writing him peremptory letters and appealing to him as
a son, brother, and fellow-citizen. He would have been grateful for
another year in Rome, but what must be must be, and he had laid up
treasure which, in Buffalo, would seem infinite.
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