Page:The Novels and Tales of Henry James, Volume 1 (New York, Charles Scribner's Sons, 1907).djvu/106

 we 'll have Mrs. Striker too," he said, "if she'll come, to keep my mother in countenance; and at any rate we 'll have Miss Striker—the divine Petronilla!" The young lady thus denominated formed, with Mrs. Hudson, Miss Garland and Cecilia, the better part of the female contingent. Mr. Striker presented himself, sacrificing a morning's work, with a magnanimity greater even than Roderick's, and foreign support was further secured in the person of Mr. Whitefoot, the young Orthodox minister. Roderick had chosen his happy valley, the feasting-place; he knew it well and had passed many a summer afternoon there, lying at his length on the grass in the shade and looking away to the blue distances, the "purple rim" of the poet, which had the wealth of the world, all the unattainable of life, beyond them. A high-hung meadow stretched on one side to a peculiarly dark wood, in which he used to say there were strange beasts and "monsters," who could n't come out, but who put it out of the question that one should go in; and the meadow had high mossy rocks protruding through its grass and formed in the opposite direction the shore of a small lake. It was a cloudless August day; Rowland always remembered it, and the scene and everything that was said and done, with extraordinary distinctness. Roderick surpassed himself in friendly jollity, and at one moment, when exhilaration was at the highest, was seen in Mr. Striker's high white hat, drinking champagne from a broken tea-cup to Mr. Striker's health. Miss Striker had her father's light green eyes and almost 72