some
flowers for your dining table."

Reciprocity was practised between these best of friends, and while Mr.
Gurd often sent customers to Mrs. Northover, since tea parties were not
a branch of business he cared about, she returned his good service with
gifts from the herbaceous border and free permission to use her spacious
inn yard and stables.

"I'm always coming to have a look round at your wonderful flower-bed,"
said Richard, "and some Sunday morning, during church hours, I will do
so; but you know how busy we all are in August. And I don't want no
flowers; but I want the run of your four-stall stable. There's a 'beano'
coming over from Lyme and I'm full up already."

"Never no need to ask," she answered. "I'll tell Job to set a man on to
it."

He thanked her very heartily and she gave him a rose. Then he admired
the grass, knowing that she prided herself upon it.

"Never seen such grass anywhere else in Bridport," he assured her.
"There's lots try to grow grass like yours; but none can come near
this."

"'Tis Job's work," she told him. "He's a Northerner and had the charge
of a bowling-green at his uncle's public; and what he don't know about
grass ain't worth knowing."

"He's a sheet-anchor, that man," confessed Richard; "a sheet-anchor and
a tower of strength, as you might say."

"I don't deny it," admitted Nelly. "Sometimes, in a calm moment, I run
my mind over Job Legg, and I'm almost ashamed to think how much I owe
him."

"It ain't all one way, however. He's got a snug place, and no potman in
Dorset draws more money, though there's some who draws more beer."

"There's no potman in Dorset with his head," she answered. "He's got a
brain and it's very seldom indeed you find such an honest chap with such
a lot of intellects. The clever ones are mostly the downy ones; but
Job's single thought is the welfare of the house, and he pushes honesty
to extremes."

"If you can say that, he must be a wonder, certainly, for none knows
what honesty means better than you," said Mr. Gurd. He had put Nelly's
rose into his coat.

"He's more than a potman, chiefly along of being such a good friend to
my late husband. Almost the last sensible thing my poor dear said to me
before he died was never to get rid of Job. And no doubt I never shall.
I'm going to put up his money at Michaelmas."

"Well, don't make the man a god, and don't you spoil him. Job's a very
fine chap and can carry corn as well as most of 'em--in