“Indeed!”
“Yes, sir,” said the gardener thoughtfully. “I don’t mind who knows it. I’d got as nice a little cottage in my eye as any man would wish to have there, the money to buy all the furniture, as much more as was wanted, theirs being very old; and I could have said to you, ‘There’s a bedroom and a setten’-room, and the best of attendance.’”
“But it is not in hand, eh?”
“In hand, sir? No, sir; nothing like in hand.”
“How’s that?”
“Ah, well, I don’t care who knows it now, sir. Mebbe if she heard how it’s talked about, and the man’s disappointment, she may get better, and alter her mind.”
“She? The lady?”
“Yes, sir; the lady, as I may say I’d engaged myself to; but she’s took bad and strange, and I suppose it’s all off.”
“Ah, well, I’m sorry to hear that,” said the stranger, looking amused, and as if he thought the man he addressed was a little wanting in brains.
“Thank you, sir, kindly. Lodgings?—no. You see this isn’t a seaside place.”