Gervase went home still with his head bent, but no longer thinking of the white pebbles and the brown. It is true that his accustomed eye caught a big one here and there, which had rolled to the side of the path, and which he felt with regret would have come in so finely for the right or the left-hand man! but his mind was fixed on his _consigne_, and he was saying to himself over and over the words Patty had taught him--that he wanted to go to see London, and all the fine things there; that he was tired (mortal tired) of staying always at home; that it was a shame he never was trusted nor allowed to do anything (and so it was a shame). He could not even think of the pleasure of going to London, of meeting Patty at the station, and all that was to follow, so absorbed were his thoughts with what he had to say in the meantime. And it would not have been surprising had Gervase been overwhelmed by the thought of making such a wild suggestion to his parents, who had kept him hitherto like a child under their constant supervision. But his simple mind was not troubled by any such reflection as this. Patty had told him what to say, and no feeling of the impossibility of the thing, or of the strange departure in it from all the rules which had guided his life, affected him. If it did not succeed, all he had to do was to tell her, and she would think of something else. Better heads than that of poor Gervase have found this a great relief among the problems of life. As for him, he was not aware of any problems; he had a thing to say, and the trouble was lest he should forget it or say it wrong. To think of anything further was not his share of the business. He, too, met his mother just as she returned from her drive, so that he had taken a considerable time to that exercise, walking up and down the path that led under the wall of the park, conning his lesson. An impulse came upon him to say it off then and there, and so free his mind from the responsibility; but he remembered in time that Patty had said it was to be kept till after dinner, when his father and mother were both present. He was rather frightened, however, when the carriage suddenly drove up, and he was called to the door. “Hallo! mamma,” he said, striding over a gorse bush that was in his way. Lady Piercey had jumped at the conclusion, as soon as she saw him, that there had been a meeting, as she said, “between those two.” She called out quickly to take him by surprise, “Hi! Gervase! have you met anybody on the road?” Now, Gervase was not clever, as the reader knows; but just because he was a Softy, and his brains different from other people’s, he was better qualified to deal with such a question than a more intelligent youth might have been. “Met anybody on the road?” he said, gazing with his dull eyes and open mouth. “But I’ve not been on the road; I’ve only been up and down here.” “Oh, you----! but here is just the same as the road. Who have you been talking to?” the mother cried.