"What does your grandfather say about it?" asked the mother-in-law of Avis.
"He haven't had much time to think about my father, because grandmother was so queer for a bit when mother died. But she's pretty right again now, and they're soon moving into the villa, and grandfather's terrible busy. By the same token I must go down to-morrow and help Aunt Jane. I've promised to take the children off her hands for a few hours. A great upheaval."
"So it is then. A very strange thought—the post-office and the shop without Mrs. Huxam in it; but it's time they retired and the name will be carried on."
Avis considered.
"For how long I wonder. Uncle Jeremy's got it all at his finger ends—so he says, but John Henry vows he'll never stick to it."
Her mother-in-law brought the subject back to Jacob.
"I hope Barlow Huxam will consider about your father in a Christian spirit," she said. "Something should be done for Mr. Bullstone, and I wouldn't say but what you and John Henry oughtn't to try and get a doctor to him."
"He'd never see nobody, and he's turned against us," declared Avis. "He's fairly friendly to grandfather I believe, but not to grandmother. He never did like her, because she saw he was not a godly man, and she kept mother away from him when the devil tempted poor mother to try and go back. He's the fifth wheel of a coach now—father is. A know-nought, rash man always, and it's no unkindness to wish he was out of his sufferings I'm sure. He's a disgrace to us all in a manner of speaking, mother."
The elder woman considered and shook her head.
"That's a hard word," she answered,