Margery regarded him with parted lips.
"He wants to see me?"
"I was the last to have speech with him before he was smashed, and there's no doubt he had a near squeak of his life. I remember Amelia Winter telling me years ago, when I was a huckster, that in the case of Samuel Winter, as a young child, it was a great question whether he'd turn out amazingly clever, or weak in his head. Unfortunately he proved one of the Lord's own, and now, since this business, Adam feels it a difficult question whether Sammy didn't ought to be put away. Why I tell you this is because I'm coming to the point, and that is our mother's fine rule of life that nothing happens by chance."
"Go on," said Margery.
"Well, granted nothing happens by chance, then we've got the satisfaction of knowing we are doing Heaven's will from morning till night. Therefore, if you help me in a vital matter and I help you in a vital matter, we're both doing Heaven's will; and whatever came of it, mother would be the first to confess it was so."
"Lord, Jeremy!" cried Jane. "D'you mean to say——"
"I mustn't come into it," explained Jeremy. "I don't say I'll lift a hand; but I do say that, if it was established that Jane and I go to the post-office when the old people retire, I should feel a great deal clearer in my mind and kinder to the world at large. It is high time I had a bit of light on that subject, and I'm a good deal puzzled the light hasn't shone. I've been hoping a long time to hear we was to go in, and so I feel that you might find good and useful work ready to your hand in that matter, Margery. And—and one good turn deserves another. That's well within a clear conscience."
"A 'good' turn—yes," declared Jane doubtfully.
"It would be a good turn if I decide to help Margery, because we must all do as the Lord intends, and therefore it couldn't be a bad one," explained the casuist. "In a word, if Margery impressed upon mother that the right and proper thing was to trust the business and the post-office to us, that might determine the point. As a matter of fact I'm uneasy. Father's been into Plymouth more than once of late and, of course, they're looking ahead. They always do."
"They are," answered Margery, "and I'll tell you something. Mother wants you and Jane to take over the business—under father. And father, seeing you've never stuck to nothing in your life, feels very doubtful if you're the man. They differ."