'No, Miss, she is not. She has been ill with losing you. We did miss you sore, Miss.'
'It's nice of you to say so. But is it not wonderful that Jack should have picked me up when I fell into the sea? It was high tide, you know, and I was swept out so far I should have been drowned but for him. He took me home, and both he and his mother were so good to me.'
She told him the story which she had already related once that morning, dwelling especially on Jack's gallant rescue.
'Oh, Peet, he is such a good fellow,' she went on, 'so kind to every one, and so good to his mother! As to her, she is just the best mother possible. Peet, do you know Jack—have you spoken to him?'
She was anxious to know if Jack had had his interview; from Peet's manner she feared he had not, or that something was wrong.
'Why should I speak to him?' asked the gardener, in his most forbidding tones.
'Because Dick has,' she ventured, scarcely knowing how to say more in Peet's surly mood.
'Dick and I are two different persons, Miss.'
'Yes,' said Estelle, softly, 'Dick is a—is very near Heaven, Aunt Betty says. Peet, I think it is worse for the man who has done the wrong.'
'Do you, Miss? Well, I can't see it. It's not my way of thinking, anyhow.'