They delayed somewhat longer than Mrs. Northover expected and she left them presently, for she had an appointment bearing on the supreme subject of her offer of marriage.  Mrs. Northover was, in fact, going to take another opinion.  Such indecision seemed foreign to her character, which seldom found her in two minds; but it happened that upon one judgment she had often relied since her husband’s death and, before the great problem at present challenging Nelly, she believed another view might largely assist her.  That she could not decide herself, she felt to be very significant.  The fact made her cautious and anxious.

She put on her bonnet now, left a maid to settle with the customers and presently stepped across the road to ‘The Tiger,’ for it was Richard Gurd in whom Mrs. Northover put her trust.  She designed to place Job’s offer before her friend and invite a candid and unprejudiced criticism.  For so doing more reasons than one may have existed; we seldom seek the judgment of a friend without mixed motives; but, at any rate, Nelly believed very thoroughly in her neighbour, and if, in reality, it was as much a wish that he should know what had happened, as a desire to learn his opinion upon it, she none the less felt that opinion would be precious and probably decide her.

Richard was waiting in his office—­a small apartment off the bar, to which none had access save himself.

“Come in here and we shan’t be disturbed,” he said.  “Of course, when you tell me you want my advice on a matter of the greatest importance, all else has to stand by.  My old friend’s wife has a right to come to me, I should hope, and I’m glad you’ve done so.  Sit here by the fire.”

It did not take Mrs. Northover long to relate the situation, nor was Mr. Gurd much puzzled to declare his view.  In brief words she told him of Job Legg’s greatly increased prosperity 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.”