osperity and his proposal to wed. Having
made her statement, she advanced a few words for Job.

"In fairness and beyond all this, I must tell you, Richard, that he's a
very uncommon sort of man. That you know, of course, as well as I do.
But what you don't know is that when he was away, I badly missed him and
found out, for the first time, what an all-round, valuable creature he
has become at 'The Seven Stars.' When he was along with his dying
relation, I missed the man a thousand times in every twelve hours and I
felt properly astonished to find how he was the prop and stay of my
business. That may seem too much to say, seeing I'm a fairly clever
woman and know how to run 'The Seven Stars' in a pretty prosperous way;
but there is no doubt Legg is very much more than what he seems. He's a
very human man and I'll go so far as to say this: I like him. There's
great self-respect to him and you feel, under his level temper and
unfailing readiness to work at anything and everything, that he's a
power for good--in fact a man with high principles--so high as my own,
if not higher."

"Stop there, or you'll over-do it," said Richard. "Higher than yours his
principles won't take him and I refuse to hear you say so. You ask me in
plain words if you shall marry Job Legg, or if you shan't. And before I
speak, I may tell you that, as a man of the world, I shan't quarrel with
you if you don't take my advice. As a rule I have found that good advice
is more often given than taken and, whether or no, the giving of advice
nearly always means one thing. And that is that the giver loses a
friend. If the advice is bad, it is generally taken, and him that takes
it finds out in due course it was bad, and so the giver makes an enemy.
And if 'tis good, the same thing happens, for then 'tis not taken and,
looking back, the sufferer sees his mistake, and human nature works, and
instead of kicking himself, he feels like kicking the wise man that gave
him the good advice. But between me and you that won't happen, for
there's the ghost of William Northover to come between. You and me are
high spirited, and I dare say there are some people who would say we are
short tempered; but we know better."

"That's all true as gospel; and now you tell me if I ought to marry Job.
Or, if 'tis too great a question to decide in a minute, as I find it
myself, then leave it till to-morrow and I'll pop in again."

"No need to leave it. My mind is used to make itsel