"This might really do for a Rosamond's Bower!" cried Mrs. Panton. "It is a sweetly pretty place."
The lawn was level as a bowling-green; the flowers and shrubs surrounding it were well-kept, fragrant, and blooming. Mounted on a ladder, nailing some branches against a wall that probably belonged to a tool-house, was the toothless old gardener, his knees swollen and bent, his white smock frock rolled up around him.
"That's the gardener at his work, I suppose?" observed the General, whose eyes were dim.
"Yes, that's Hopley," said Karl.
"What d'ye call his name; Sir Karl?"
"Hopley. He is the woman's husband."
"I had a servant once of that name when I was quartered at Malta. A good servant he was, too."
"That man yonder looks ill," remarked Mrs. Panton.
"I fancy he is subject to rheumatism," said Sir Karl. "How is your husband?" he enquired of Ann Hopley.
"Pretty middling, sir, thank you," she answered. "He is getting in years you see, gentlefolks, and is not as strong as he was."