He opened the letter. Its contents were what he had long expected. His uncle offered to take him into his office. He laid it spread out before him--a foot on each margin, right and left--and looked at it, turning the matter over and over in his mind. Would he go? would he stay? He did not like the idea much. The lounger in him did not enjoy the thought of London. Gradually his mind wandered away into scheming--infinite scheming--what would he do if he went, what would he do if he did not go? A beetle, attracted by the faint sunlight, had crawled out of its hole. It saw the paper and crept on to it, the better to catch the sunlight. Sherman saw the beetle but his mind was not occupied with it. ‘Shall I tell Mary Carton?’ he was thinking. Mary had long been his adviser and friend. She was, indeed, everybody’s adviser. Yes, he would ask her what to do. Then again he thought--no, he would decide for himself. The beetle began to move. ‘If it goes off the paper by the top I will ask her--if by the bottom I will not.’ The beetle went off by the top. He got up with an air of decision and went into the tool-house and began sorting seeds and picking out the light ones, sometimes stopping to watch a spider; for he knew he must wait till the afternoon to see Mary Carton. The tool-house was a favourite place with him. He often read there and watched the spiders in the corners. At dinner he was preoccupied. ‘Mother,’ he said, ‘would you much mind if we went away from this?’ ‘I have often told you,’ she answered, ‘I do not like one place better than another. I like them all equally little.’ After dinner he went again into the tool-house. This time he did not sort seeds--only watched the spiders. III Towards evening he went out. The pale sunshine of winter flickered on his path. The wind blew the straws about. He grew more and more melancholy. A dog of his acquaintance was chasing rabbits in a field. He had never been known to catch one, and since his youth had never seen one, for he was almost wholly blind. They were his form of the eternal chimera. The dog left the field and followed with a friendly sniff. They came together to the rectory. Mary Carton was not in. There was a children’s practice in the school-house. They went thither. A child of four or five with a swelling on its face was sitting under a wall opposite the school door, waiting to make faces at the Protestant children as they came out. Catching sight of the dog she seemed to debate in her mind whether to throw a stone at it or call it to her. She threw the stone and made it run. In after times he remembered all these things as though they were of importance.