“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 fact far better; but a man is terrible quick to trade on the good opinion of his fellow man, and if you let him imagine you can’t do without him, you may put false and fantastic ideas into his head.”

“I’m not at all sure if I could do without him,” she answered, “though, even if he knew it, he’s far too fine a character to take advantage.  A most modest creature and undervalued accordingly.”

Then a boy ran in for Richard and he hastened away, while Nelly took a sheaf of flowers to the summer-house and made the table bright with them.

She praised her niece’s activities.

“’Tis a shame to ring you in on your half-holiday,” she said.  “But you’re one of the sensible sort, and you won’t regret being a good girl to me in the time to come.”