It was Marty herself, and she showed her distress by her unconsciousness of a cropped poll.
"Father is still so much troubled in his mind about that tree," she said.

"You know the tree I mean, Mr.Winterborne?
the tall one in front of the house, that he thinks will blow down and kill us.

Can you come and see if you can persuade him out of his notion?
I can do nothing." He accompanied her to the cottage, and she conducted him upstairs.
John South was pillowed up in a chair between the bed and the window exactly opposite the latter, towards which his face was turned.
"Ah, neighbor Winterborne," he said.

"I wouldn't have minded if my life had only been my own to lose; I don't vallie it in much of itself, and can let it go if 'tis required of me.

But to think what 'tis worth to you, a young man rising in life, that do trouble me! It seems a trick of dishonesty towards ye to go off at fifty-five! I could bear up, I know I could, if it were not for the tree--yes, the tree, 'tis that's killing me.