Gilead, foreseeing a long day and a queer experience, drove to Paddington Station, whence he took a train presently to a distant up-river junction, from which a short branch line carried him leisurely to Shipton-on-Thames. It was a quiet torrid day in late April, hot as the ideal Midsummer, and, after asking his direction, he started on foot across the fields for the Old Rectory, which, it appeared, was situated at no great distance away on the banks of the river. His path was a pleasant one, remote and peaceful, leading him by sweet-smelling pastures and lanes to a waterside hamlet, where a scrap of church-tower, ruined and ivy-grown, and a fragment of antique graveyard at its foot spoke of some ancient benefice long since discontinued or translated. He was looking about in this sleepy retreat for someone to correct his way for him, when a sound of youthful voices breaking out if a leafy road reached his ears, and he saw two children, a boy and a girl, turn a corner and make in his direction. He advanced to meet them. “Can you tell me the way to the Old Rectory?” he asked. The boy went on without answering, but, finding that his little companion had stopped embarrassed, swaggered round and came back. “Beg your pardon?” he said. Gilead repeated his question. “Well, we’re going there,” said the boy. “You can come with us, if you like.” He was a meaty youth of some twelve summers, with an imbecile self-satisfied face and porky eyes; but his stylish white flannels and little Oxford-blue blazer with the yellow badge on its pocket spoke him quite the riverside dandy. Gilead fell into pace with the two, and the little girl kept peeping up at him from the other side of her cavalier. She was the dearest charmer of nine, dressed in a sort of sweet Directory frock with heliotrope sprays; and the shepherd’s straw hat on her head had its mauve ribbon poked full of real daisies. Presently the boy, shouldering his companion a little apart, spoke something in her ear, and she whispered back “O, Georgy!” and flushed as pink as an apple-blossom. “Please,” she said, being nudged to the soft impeachment, “Georgy says he believes you must have come about Pilot.” Gilead smiled, oddly enlightened. “The dog mentioned in the advertisement?” he said. “Did you put it in?” “No, I did,” said the boy, sniggering. “I say, what a lark! Have you really come about him?” “Supposing I have,” said Gilead; “what then?” The boy grinned, but did not answer. “Is this Judy, by any chance?” asked the young man. “Yes, it is,” said the boy. “Your sister?” “Not much. I say, you know!” exclaimed the youth. “Her name’s Brown. My name’s George Wimble. My father’s Captain Wimble. We live at the Court. I only made it up for her, and got old Gask the stationer to send it on.” “I see,” said Gilead. “What was that about no moneylenders applying?” “O! I don’t know,” said the boy. “You aren’t one, are you?” “No, I’m not one.”