It was at first intended to send Percival to Oxford; but for some reason
or other that design was abandoned. Perhaps Lady Mary, over cautious, as
mothers left alone sometimes are, feared the contagion to which a young
man of brilliant expectations and no studious turn is necessarily exposed
in all places of miscellaneous resort. So Percival was sent abroad for
two years, under the guardianship of Captain Greville. On his return, at
the age of nineteen, the great world lay before him, and he longed
ardently to enter. For a year Lady Mary's fears and fond anxieties
detained him at Laughton; but though his great tenderness for his mother
withheld Percival from opposing her wishes by his own, this interval of
inaction affected visibly his health and spirits. Captain Greville, a
man of the world, saw the cause sooner than Lady Mary, and one morning,
earlier than usual, he walked up to the Hall.

The captain, with all his deference to the sex, was a plain man enough
when business was to be done. Like his great commander, he came to the
point in a few words.

"My dear Lady Mary, our boy must go to London,--we are killing him here."

"Mr. Greville!" cried Lady Mary, turning pale and putting aside her
embroidery,--"killing him?"

"Killing the man in him. I don't mean to alarm you; I dare say his lungs
are sound enough, and that his heart would bear the stethoscope to the
satisfaction of the College of Surgeons. But, my dear ma'am, Percival is
to be a man; it is the man you are killing by keeping him tied to your
apron-string."

"Oh, Mr. Greville, I am sure you don't wish to wound me, but--"