"I suppose," said Ruth sagely, after a short silence, "that he didn't like to come home till he had some money to bring mother, and he never came because he hadn't any to bring."
"That is about the way it was."
"It wasn't very kind, though, to leave mother alone," said Ruth. "I think he ought to have stayed to take care of her or else he ought to have taken us with him."
"It would seem so, dear, but I think he couldn't bear to have your mother earning money to support him. It would have been another to feed. Before he went away, she was earning a little by writing for newspapers."
Ruth nodded. She remembered the constant writing interrupted by the haunting cough. She sat thinking it all over. After a time she turned suddenly. "One more to feed does make a difference; Billy says so."
"Yes, I am sorry to say it does," returned Miss Hester with a sigh.
"Then I don't think father was so very wrong," said the child maturely. "I can love him and be sorry for him if that is why he went away, and I think that is the way mother felt, too. She knew he meant to come back. I will go to bed now, Aunt Hester."
She slipped down from Miss Hester's lap, but, as she trailed through the door to her room, she stopped.
"There's one more thing I'd like to ask, Aunt Hester. When is the man—my uncle, coming to see me?"
"To-morrow."