"I will, then. But Mr. Marydrew is always very strong that father's mind will mend up at Huntingdon. He says that I must be wits and staff for father, and I will be. And he'll come through. Some day he'll come through, if you and Avis and Peter can show kindness now and then. It's kindness he wants."
"And that shows how rocky his mind is for the minute," declared Peter, "because anything soft, like kindness, was gall to him in the past. He was ashamed of the kindness he did himself. And now his mind has shrunk. He dwells on little silly things and messes about trifles that he links up with mother."
"When is he going to divide her clothes?" asked Avis; "it's a cruel waste and no respect to mother to let things get moth-eaten and useless, that might be worth money to the living."
"I've been at him," answered Auna. "He says that I'm to have the clothes, when I'm grown a bit more, because I'm mother's shape; but that's silly. Now you've been so nice to him, I'll get on about the clothes again to-morrow and very like he'll let me go through them, or ask you to come over and take what you want."
The girls discussed familiar articles of their mother's wardrobe, and Avis indicated much that would be useful to her and the elder Mrs. Elvin. Auna agreed, and while they talked, Peter described his father's habits of mind to his brother. The elder took a gloomy view.
"I don't think he will mend," said John Henry. "I think it's a lot more likely he'll go from bad to worse and become a raving man. There's suspicions moving deep in him. When I told him about this, you remember, he asked if I wanted to have him locked up. People, with softening of the brain coming on, often look ahead in that way and know, by a sort of fearful instinct, what's going to overtake them."
They discussed the kennels and Peter's future.
"He's all right about that," declared Jacob's younger son, "but he's sharp enough for Auna. He told me plain that he didn't trust none of us but her, and that a hair of her head was worth the lot of us. But now belike he'll change, if he remembers. It was a great thought to offer him to come to Bullstone."
"If you want to please him, John Henry, put flowers on mother's grave now and again," advised Auna. "Her grave will always draw him down from the moor, same as it does now."
They talked until tea time, when Jacob returned, and John Henry went to put in his horse. Their father was now calm and cheerful. He said no more concerning the new suggestion; but he had not forgotten it, for when Avis and her brother were gone and Peter at the kennel, he questioned Auna.