“John Grange.”
“John Grange?”
“Yes; I dare say he has been here. He has been in the big conservatory ever so long, tying up plants and clearing off dead stuff.”
“John Grange! What, has he got back his sight?”
“No; the mistress fetched him over from old Tummus’s cottage, and he has been hard at work ever so long.”
“But there wasn’t no clearing up to do,” cried Barnett, flushing angrily.
“Wasn’t there? Well, he was at it, and you may tell that fellow he won’t be wanted, for John Grange is going to stay.”
Daniel Barnett said something which, fortunately, was inaudible, and need not be recorded; and he turned pale through the harvest brown sun-tan with mortification and jealous rage.
“Why, you don’t mean to say, Mr Ellis, sir,” he cried, “that you’ve been a party to bringing that poor creature back here to make himself a nuisance and get meddling with my plants?”
“No, sir, I do not,” said the bailiff sharply; “it’s your mistress’s work. She has a way of doing what she likes, and you’d better talk to her about that.”