It might last yet for many a weary
hour; but it was a long lane that had no turning. Roderick's blues would
not last forever. Rowland's interest in Miss Garland's relations with
her cousin was still profoundly attentive, and perplexed as he was on
all sides, he found nothing transparent here. After their arrival at
Engelthal, Roderick appeared to seek the young girl's society more than
he had done hitherto, and this revival of ardor could not fail to set
his friend a-wondering. They sat together and strolled together, and
Miss Garland often read aloud to him. One day, on their coming to
dinner, after he had been lying half the morning at her feet, in the
shadow of a rock, Rowland asked him what she had been reading.
"I don't know," Roderick said, "I don't heed the sense." Miss Garland
heard this, and Rowland looked at her. She looked at Roderick sharply
and with a little blush. "I listen to Mary," Roderick continued,
"for the sake of her voice. It 's distractingly sweet!" At this Miss
Garland's blush deepened, and she looked away.
Rowland, in Florence, as we know, had suffered his imagination to
wander in the direction of certain conjectures which the reader may deem
unflattering to Miss Garland's constancy.
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