"Good morning, sir! You don't look very well, I think," observed the keen-sighted old man.
Elsie glanced at her brother; he was very pale, and his heavy eyes told of a long, sleepless night.
Mr. Mellen frowned slightly; it displeased him to have his personal appearance commented upon, and wounded his pride to know that he had not sufficient strength to keep back every outward sign of the anxiety and trouble he was enduring.
"Be you well, now?" continued the pertinacious old man, who had a habit of asking questions and expressing his opinions with the utmost freedom to people of every degree.
"Perfectly well," replied Mr. Mellen. "You have come up about that tree, have you?"
"Wal, yes," said Jarvis. "I hadn't much to do this morning, so I thought I'd just come round and find out what's the matter. You hain't found no gardener yet?"
"No; I have sent to town for one. You have sufficient knowledge to keep the greenhouse in order until one is found."
"Just as you say, sir; I'll do my best."
The gardener at Piney Cove had seen fit to leave the place a few days before without the slightest warning, with the true, reckless independence of the Hibernian race. When a dilemma of this kind arose, the people of the neighborhood were in the habit of sending for old Benson, who seemed, in some mysterious way, to have acquired a smattering of knowledge about everything that could make him generally useful.
Elsie did not feel particularly interested in the subject of conversation, and was moving off in search of other amusement, when she heard old Jarvis say: