But Bertie had found time recently for a talk with her brother; telling him that he was old enough now to know about their mother. Bertie had got the facts long ago from Aunt Emma, and now she passed them on, and many mysteries were solved for the boy, not merely about his mother, but about his father. Dad had married after he was forty, being then the keeper of a cross-roads store; he had married the village belle, who thought she was making a great conquest. But very soon she had got ideas beyond the village; she had tried to pry Dad loose, and finally had run away and left him, with a prosperous bond-salesman from Angel City, who had married her, but then got tired and left her. Mamma’s leaving had done what all her arguments had failed to do—it had pried Dad loose. He had thought it over and realized—what everybody wanted was money, and he had lost out because he hadn’t made enough; well, he’d show them. And from that time Dad had shut his lips and set to work. Some of his associates in the village had proposed to drill for oil, and he had gone in with them, and they had made a success, and pretty soon Dad had branched out for himself. Bunny thought that story over, and watched his father, and pieced things together. Yes, he understood now—that grim concentration, and watchfulness, and merciless driving; Dad was punishing Mrs. Andrew Wotherspoon Lang, showing her that he was just as good a man as any bond-salesman from the city! And Dad’s distrust of women, his idea that they were all trying to get your money away from you! And his centering of all his hopes upon Bunny, who was going to be happy, and to have all of his father’s virtues and none of his faults, and provide that meaning and justification which Dad couldn’t find in his own life! When Bunny thought of that, he would have a sudden access of affection, and put his arm across Dad’s shoulders, and say something about how his father was working too hard, and how Bunny must hurry and grow up and carry some of the load.