“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 itself up swift.  First, as to Legg.  Legg’s a very good man, indeed, and I’d be the first to praise him.  He’s all you say—­or nearly all—­and I’ve often been very much impressed by him.  And if he was anybody’s servant but yours, I dare say I’d have tempted him to ‘The Tiger’ before now.  But there are some that shine in the lead, like you and me, and some that only show their full worth when they’ve got to obey.  Job can obey to perfection; but I’m not so sure if he’s fitted to command.”

“Remember,” she said, “that if I say ‘no’ to the man, I lose him.  He can’t be my right hand no more then, because he’d leave.  And my heart sinks at the thought of another potman at my age.”

“When you say ‘potman’ you come to the root of the matter, and your age has nothing to do with it,” answered Richard.  “The natural instinct at such times is to advise against, and when man or woman asks a fellow creature as to the wisdom of marrying, they’ll always pull a long face and find fifty good reasons why not.  But I’m taking this in a larger spirit.  There’s no reason why you shouldn’t marry again, and you’d make another as happy as you did your first, no doubt.  But Job Legg is a potman; he’s been a potman for a generation; he thinks like a potman, and his outlook in life is naturally the potman outlook.  Mind, I’m not saying anything against him as a man when I tell you so; I’m only looking at him now as a husband for you.  He’s got religion and a good temper, and dollops of sense, and I’ll even go so far as to say, seeing that he is now a man of money, that he was