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+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mother
+
+Author: Norman Duncan
+
+Illustrator: H. E. Fritz
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2008 [EBook #27550]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Mother
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: The Mother]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Title page]
+
+
+
+The Mother
+
+
+by
+
+Norman Duncan
+
+
+
+
+
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+
+Publishers
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Copyright]
+
+
+
+Copyright 1905
+
+by
+
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+
+New York -- Chicago -- Toronto
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Dedication]
+
+
+To
+
+E. H. D.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorations]
+
+
+The Decorations
+
+In This Book Were
+
+Designed by H. E. Fritz
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+Contents
+
+  BY PROXY
+  THE RIVER
+  A GARDEN OF LIES
+  THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE
+  AT MIDNIGHT
+  A MEETING BY CHANCE
+  RENUNCIATION
+  IN THE CURRENT
+  THE CHORISTER
+  ALIENATION
+  A CHILD'S PRAYER
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+  MR. PODDLE'S FINALE
+  HIS MOTHER
+  NEARING THE SEA
+  THE LAST APPEAL
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _By Proxy_]
+
+
+
+
+_BY PROXY_
+
+It will be recalled without effort--possibly, indeed, without
+interest--that the obsequies of the old Senator Boligand were a
+distinguished success: a fashionable, proper function, ordered by the
+young widow with exquisite taste, as all the world said, and conducted
+without reproach, as the undertaker and the clergy very heartily
+agreed.  At the Church of the Lifted Cross, the incident of the child,
+the blonde lady and the mysteriously veiled man, who sat in awe and
+bewildered amazement where the shadows gave deepest seclusion, escaped
+notice.  Not that the late Senator Boligand was in life aware of the
+existence of the child or the lady or the strange fellow with the veil.
+Nothing of the sort.  The one was the widow of Dick Slade, the other
+his son, born in wedlock; and the third was the familiar counsellor and
+intimate of them all.  The Senator was for once turned to good account:
+was made contributor to the sweetness of life, to the comfort of the
+humble.  That was all.  And I fancy that the shade of the grim old
+robber, lurking somewhere in the softly coloured gloom of the chancel,
+was not altogether averse to the farce in which his earthly tabernacle
+was engaged....
+
+When Dick Slade died in the big red tenement of Box Street, he died as
+other men die, complaining of the necessity; and his son, in the way of
+all tender children, sorely wept: not because his father was now lost
+to him, which was beyond his comprehension, but because the man must be
+put in a grave--a cold place, dark and suffocating, being underground,
+as the child had been told.
+
+"I don't want my father," he woefully protested, "to be planted!"
+
+"Planted!" cried the mother, throwing up her hands in indignant denial.
+"Who told you he'd be planted?"
+
+"Madame Lacara."
+
+"She's a liar," said the woman, composedly, without resentment.  "We'll
+cut the _planting_ out of _this_ funeral."  Her ingenuity, her
+resourcefulness, her daring, when the happiness of her child was
+concerned, were usually sufficient to the emergency.  "Why, darling!"
+she exclaimed.  "Your father will be taken right up into the sky.  He
+won't be put in no grave.  He'll go right straight to a place where
+it's all sunshine--where it's all blue and high and as bright as day."
+She bustled about: keeping an eye alert for the effect of her promises.
+She was not yet sure how this glorious ascension might be managed; but
+she had never failed to deceive him to his own contentment, and 'twas
+not her habit to take fainthearted measures.  "They been lying to you,
+dear," she complained.  "Don't you fret about graves.  You just wait,"
+she concluded, significantly, "and see!"
+
+The boy sighed.
+
+"Poddle and me," she added, with a wag of the head to convince him,
+"will show you where your father goes."
+
+"I wish," the boy said, wistfully, "that he wasn't dead."
+
+"Don't you do it!" she flashed.  "It don't make no difference to him.
+It's a good thing.  I bet he's glad to be dead."
+
+The boy shook his head.
+
+"Yes, he is!  Don't you think he isn't.  There ain't nothing like being
+dead.   Everybody's happy--when they're dead."
+
+"He's so still!" the boy whispered.
+
+"It feels fine to be still--like that."
+
+"And he's so cold!"
+
+"No!" she scorned.  "He don't feel cold.  You think he's cold.  But he
+ain't.  That's just what you _think_.  He's comfortable.  He's glad to
+be dead.  Everybody's glad to be dead."
+
+The boy shuddered.
+
+"Don't you do that no more!" said the woman.  "It don't hurt to be
+dead.  Honest, it don't!  It feels real good to be that way."
+
+"I--I--I don't think I'd like--to be dead!"
+
+"You don't have to if you don't want to," the woman replied, thrown
+into a confusion of pain and alarm.  To comfort him, to shield him from
+agony, to keep the shadow of fear from falling upon him: she desired
+nothing more; and she was content to succeed if but for the moment.  "I
+tell you," she continued, "you never will be dead--if you don't want
+to.  Your father wanted to be dead.  'I think, Millie,' says he, 'I'd
+like to be dead.'  'All right, Dick,' says I.  'If you want to, I won't
+stand in your way.  But I don't know about the boy.'  'Oh,' says he,
+'the boy won't stand in my way.'  'I guess that's right, Dick,' says I,
+'for the boy loves you.'  And so," she concluded, "he died.  But _you_
+don't have to die.  You'll never die--not unless you want to."  She
+kissed him.  "Don't you be afraid, dear!" she crooned.
+
+"I'm not--afraid."
+
+"Well, then," she asked, puzzled, "what _are_ you?"
+
+"I don't know," he faltered.  "I think it makes me--sick at
+the--stomach."
+
+He had turned white.  She took him in her arms, to comfort and hearten
+him--an unfailing device: her kisses, her warm, ample bosom, her close
+embrace; he was by these always consoled....
+
+
+Next day, then, in accordance with the woman's device, the boy and his
+mother set out with the veiled man for the Church of the Lifted Cross,
+where the obsequies of Senator Boligand were to take place.  It was sad
+weather--a cold rain falling, the city gray, all the world black-clad
+and dripping and sour of countenance.  The veiled man said never a
+word; he held the boy's hand tight, and strode gloomily on--silent of
+melancholy, of protest, of ill temper: there was no knowing, for his
+face was hid.  The woman, distinguished by a mass of blinding blonde
+hair and a complexion susceptible to change by the weather, was dressed
+in the ultra-fashionable way--the small differences of style all
+accentuated: the whole tawdry and shabby and limp in the rain.  The
+child, a slender boy, delicately white of skin, curly headed, with
+round, dark eyes, outlooking in wonder and troubled regard, but yet
+bravely enough, trotted between the woman and the man, a hand in the
+hand of each....  And when they came to the Church of the Lifted Cross;
+and when the tiny, flickering lights, and the stained windows, and the
+shadows overhead, and the throbbing, far-off music had worked their
+spell upon him, he snuggled close to his mother, wishing himself well
+away from the sadness and mystery of the place, but glad that its
+solemn splendour honoured the strange change his father had chosen to
+undergo.
+
+"Have they brought papa yet?" he whispered.
+
+"Hush!" she answered.  "He's come."
+
+For a moment she was in a panic--lest the child's prattle, being
+perilously indiscreet, involve them all in humiliating difficulties.
+Scandal of this sort would be intolerable to the young Boligand widow.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Don't talk so loud, dear.  He's down in front--where all the lights
+are."
+
+"Can't we go there?'
+
+"No, no!" she whispered, quickly.  "It isn't the way.  We must sit
+here.  Don't talk, dear; it isn't the way."
+
+"I'd like to--kiss him."
+
+"Oh, my!" she exclaimed.  "It isn't allowed.  We got to sit right here.
+That's the way it's always done.  Hush, dear!  Please don't talk."
+
+With prayer and soulful dirges--employing white robes and many lights
+and the voices of children--the body of Senator Boligand was dealt
+with, in the vast, dim church, according to the forms prescribed, and
+with due regard for the wishes of the young widow.  The Senator was an
+admirable substitute; Dick Slade's glorious ascension was accomplished.
+And the heart of the child was comforted by this beauty: for then he
+knew that his father was by some high magic admitted to the place of
+which his mother had told him--some place high and blue and ever light
+as day.  The fear of death passed from him.  He was glad, for his
+father's sake, that his father had died; and he wished that he, too,
+might some day know the glory to which his father had attained.
+
+But when the earthly remains of the late distinguished Senator were
+borne down the aisle in solemn procession, the boy had a momentary
+return of grief.
+
+"Is that papa in the box?" he whimpered.
+
+His mother put her lips to his ear.  "Yes," she gasped.  "But don't
+talk.  It isn't allowed."
+
+The veiled man turned audibly uneasy.  "Cuss it!" he fumed.
+
+"Oh, father!" the boy sobbed.
+
+With happy promptitude the veiled man acted.  He put a hand over the
+boy's mouth.  "For God's sake, Millie," he whispered to the woman,
+"let's get out of here!  We'll be run in."
+
+"Hush, dear!" the woman commanded: for she was much afraid.
+
+After that, the child was quiet.
+
+
+From the room in the Box Street tenement, meantime, the body of Dick
+Slade had been taken in a Department wagon to a resting-place befitting
+in degree.
+
+"Millie," the veiled man protested, that night, "you didn't ought to
+fool the boy."
+
+"It don't matter, Poddle," said she.  "And I don't want him to feel
+bad."
+
+"You didn't ought to do it," the man persisted.  "It'll make trouble
+for him."
+
+"I can't see him hurt," said the woman, doggedly.  "I love him so much.
+Poddle, I just can't!  It hurts _me_."
+
+The boy was now in bed.  "Mother," he asked, lifting himself from the
+pillow, "when will I die?"
+
+"Why, child!" she ejaculated.
+
+"I wish," said the boy, "it was to-morrow."
+
+"There!" said the woman, in triumph, to the man.  "He ain't afraid of
+death no more."
+
+"I told you so, Millie!" the man exclaimed, at the same instant.
+
+"But he ain't afraid to die," she persisted.  "And that's all I want."
+
+"You can't fool him always," the man warned.
+
+The boy was then four years old....
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _By Proxy_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The River_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE RIVER_
+
+Top floor rear of the Box Street tenement looked out upon the river.
+It was lifted high: the activities of the broad stream and of the
+motley world of the other shore went silently; the petty noises of
+life--the creak and puff and rumble of its labouring
+machinery,--straying upward from the fussy places below, were lost in
+the space between.
+
+Within: a bed, a stove, a table--the gaunt framework of home.  But the
+window overlooked the river; and the boy was now seven years old,
+unknowing, unquestioning, serenely obedient to the circumstances of his
+life: feeling no desire that wandered beyond the familiar presence of
+his mother--her voice and touch and brooding love.
+
+It was a magic window--a window turned lengthwise, broad, low,
+small-paned, disclosing wonders without end: a scene of infinite
+changes.  There was shipping below, restless craft upon the water; and
+beyond, dwarfed in the distance, was a confusion of streets, of flat,
+puffing roofs, stretching from the shining river to the far, misty
+hills, which lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious.
+
+But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs.  From the
+window--and from the love in the room--the boy looked out upon an alien
+world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and
+day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....
+
+
+In the evening the boy sat with his mother at the window.  Together
+they watched the shadows gather--the hills and the city and the river
+dissolve: the whole broad world turn to points of light, twinkling,
+flashing, darting, in the black, voiceless gulf.  Nor would she fail to
+watch the night come, whether in gentle weather or whipping rain: but
+there would sit, the boy in her arms, held close to her breast, her
+hand straying restlessly over his small body, intimately caressing it.
+
+The falling shadows; the river, flowing unfeelingly; the lights,
+wandering without rest, aimless, forever astray in the dark: these were
+a spell upon her.
+
+"They go to the sea!" she whispered, once.
+
+"The ships, mother?"
+
+She put his head in the hollow of her shoulder, where her cheek might
+touch his hair: all the time staring out at the lights on the river.
+
+"All the ships, all the lights on the river," she said, hoarsely, "go
+out there."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The river takes them."
+
+He was made uneasy: being conscious of the deeper meaning--acutely
+aware of some strange dread stirring in her heart.
+
+"Maybe," he protested, "they're glad to go away."
+
+She shook her head.  "One night," she said, leaning towards the window,
+seeming now to forget the boy, "I seen the sea.  All the lights on the
+river go different ways--when they get out there.  It is a dark and
+lonesome place--big and dark and lonesome."
+
+"Then," said he, quickly, "you would not like to be there."
+
+"No," she answered.  "I do not like the sky," she continued; "it is so
+big and empty.  I do not like the sea; it is so big and dark.  And
+black winds are always blowing there; and the lights go different ways.
+The lights," she muttered, "go different ways!  I am afraid of the
+dark.  And, oh!" she moaned, suddenly crushing him to her breast,
+rocking him, in an agony of tenderness, "I am afraid of something else.
+Oh, I am afraid!"
+
+"Of what?" he gasped.
+
+"To be alone!" she sobbed.
+
+He released himself from her arms--sat back on her knee: quivering from
+head to foot, his hands clenched, his lips writhing.  "Don't, mother!"
+he cried.  "Don't cry.  We will not go to the sea.  We _will_ not!"
+
+"We must," she whispered.
+
+"Oh, why?"
+
+She kissed him: her hand slipped under his knees; and she drew him
+close again--and there held him until he lay quiet in her arms.
+
+"We are like the lights on the river," she said.  "The river will take
+us to a place where the lights go different ways."
+
+"We will not go!"
+
+"The river will take us."
+
+The boy was puzzled: he lifted his head, to watch the lights drift
+past, far below; and he was much troubled by this mystery.  She tried
+to gather his legs in her lap--to hold him as she used to do, when he
+was a child at her breast; but he was now grown too large for that, and
+she suffered, again, the familiar pain: a perception of alienation--of
+inevitable loss.
+
+"When?" he asked.
+
+She let his legs fall.  "Soon," she sighed.  "When you are older; it
+won't be long, now.  When you are a little wiser; it will be very soon."
+
+"When I am wiser," he pondered, "we must go.  What makes me wiser?"
+
+"The wise."
+
+"Are you wise?"
+
+"God help me!" she answered.
+
+He nestled his head on her shoulder--dismissing the mystery with a
+quick sigh.  "Never mind," he said, to comfort her.  "You will not be
+alone.  I will be with you."
+
+"I wonder!" she mused.
+
+For a moment more she looked out; but she did not see the river--but
+saw the wide sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the great multitude of
+lights went apart, each upon its mysterious way.
+
+"Mother," he repeated, reproachfully, mystified by her hesitation, "I
+will always be with you."
+
+"I wonder!" she mused.
+
+To this doubt--now clear to him beyond hope--there was instant
+response: strangely passionate, but in keeping with his nature, as she
+knew.  For a space he lay rigid on her bosom: then struggled from her
+embrace, brutally wrenching her hands apart, flinging off her arms.  He
+stood swaying: his hands clenched, his slender body aquiver, as before,
+his dark eyes blazing reproach.  It gave her no alarm, but, rather,
+exquisite pleasure, to watch his agony.  She caught him by the
+shoulders, and bent close, that by the night-light, coming in at the
+window, she might look into his eyes: wherein, swiftly, the flare of
+reproach turned to hopeless woe.  And she was glad that he suffered:
+exalted, so that she, too, trembled.
+
+"Oh," he pleaded, "say that I will always be with you!"
+
+She would not: but continued to exult in his woeful apprehension.
+
+"Tell me, mother!" he implored.  "Tell me!"
+
+Not yet: for there was no delight to be compared with the proved
+knowledge of his love.
+
+"Mother!" he cried.
+
+"You do not love me," she said, to taunt him.
+
+"Oh, don't!" he moaned.
+
+"No, no!" she persisted.  "You don't love your mother any more."
+
+He was by this reduced to uttermost despair; and he began to beat his
+breast, in the pitiful way he had.  Perceiving, then, that she must no
+longer bait him, she opened her arms.  He sprang into them.  At once
+his sobs turned to sighs of infinite relief, which continued, until, of
+a sudden, he was hugged so tight that he had no breath left but to gasp.
+
+"And you will always be with me?" he asked.
+
+"It is the way of the world," she answered, while she kissed him, "that
+sons chooses for themselves."
+
+With that he was quite content....
+
+
+For a long time they sat silent at the window.  The boy dreamed
+hopefully of the times to come--serenity restored.  For the moment the
+woman was forgetful of the foreshadowed days, happy that the warm,
+pulsing little body of her son lay unshrinking in her arms: so
+conscious of his love and life--so wishful for a deeper sense of
+motherhood--that she slipped her hand under his jacket and felt about
+for his heart, and there let her fingers lie, within touch of its
+steady beating.  The lights still twinkled and flashed and aimlessly
+wandered in the night; but the spell of the river was lifted.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Garden of Lies_]
+
+
+
+
+_A GARDEN OF LIES_
+
+Withal it was a rare mood: nor, being wise, was she given to expressing
+it in this gloomy fashion.  It was her habit, rather, assiduously to
+woo him: this with kisses, soft and wet; with fleeting touches; with
+coquettish glances and the sly display of her charms; with rambling,
+fantastic tales of her desirability in the regard of men--thus
+practicing all the familiar fascinations of her kind, according to the
+enlightenment of the world she knew.  He must be persuaded, she
+thought, that his mother was beautiful, coveted; convinced of her wit
+and gaiety: else he would not love her.  Life had taught her no other
+way....  And always at break of day, when he awoke in her arms, she
+waited, with a pang of anxiety, pitilessly recurring, lest there be
+some sign that despite her feverish precautions the heedless world had
+in her nightly absence revealed that which she desperately sought to
+hide from him....
+
+
+Thus, by and by, when the lamp was alight--when the shadows were all
+chased out of the window, driven back to the raw fall night, whence
+they had crept in--she lapsed abruptly into her natural manner and
+practices.  She spread a newspaper on the table, whistling in a cheery
+fashion, the while covertly observing the effect of this lively
+behaviour.  With a knowing smile, promising vast gratification, she got
+him on her knee; and together, cheek to cheek, her arm about his waist,
+they bent over the page: whereon some function of the rich, to which
+the presence of the Duchess of Croft and of the distinguished Lord
+Wychester had given sensational importance, was grotesquely pictured.
+
+"Now, mother," said he, spreading the picture flat, "show me you."
+
+"This here lady," she answered, evasively, "is the Duchess of Croft."
+
+"Is it?" he asked, without interest.  "She is very fat.  Where are you?"
+
+"And here," she proceeded, "is Lord Wychester."
+
+"Mother," he demanded, "where are _you_?"
+
+She was disconcerted; no promising evasion immediately occurred to her.
+"Maybe," she began, tentatively, "this lady here----"
+
+"Oh, no!" he cried, looking up with a little laugh.  "It is not like
+you, at all!"
+
+"Well," she said, "it's probably meant for me."
+
+He shook his head; and by the manner of this she knew that he would not
+be deceived.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, "the Duchess told the man not to put me in the
+picture.  I guess that's it.  She was awful jealous.  You see, dear,"
+she went on, very solemnly, "Lord Wychester took a great fancy to me."
+
+He looked up with interest.
+
+"To--my shape," she added.
+
+"Oh!" said he.
+
+"And that," she continued, noting his pleasure, "made the Duchess hot;
+for _she's_ too fat to have much of a figure.  Most men, you know," she
+added, as though reluctant in her own praise, "do fancy mine."  She
+brushed his cheek with her lips.  "Don't you think, dear," she asked,
+assuming an air of girlish coquetry, thus to compel the compliment,
+"that I'm--rather--pretty?"
+
+"I think, mother," he answered, positively, "that you're very, very
+pretty."
+
+It made her eyes shine to hear it.  "Well," she resumed, improvising
+more confidently, now, "the Duchess was awful mortified because Lord
+Wychester danced with me seventeen times.  'Lord Wychester,' says she,
+'what _do_ you see in that blonde with the diamonds?'  'Duchess,' says
+he, 'I bet the blonde don't weigh over a hundred and ten!'"
+
+There was no answering smile; the boy glanced at the picture of the
+wise and courtly old Lord Wychester, gravely regarded that of the
+Duchess of Croft, of whose matronly charms, of whose charities and
+amiable qualities, all the world knows.
+
+"What did she say?" he asked.
+
+"'Oh, dear me, Lord Wychester!' says she.  'If you're looking for
+bones,' says she, 'that blonde is a regular glue-factory!'"
+
+He caught his breath.
+
+"'A regular glue-factory,'" she repeated, inviting sympathy.  "That's
+what she said."
+
+"Did you cry?"
+
+"Not me!" she scorned.  "Cry?  Not me!  Not for no mountain like her!"
+
+"And what," he asked, "did Lord Wychester do?"
+
+"'Back to the side-show, Duchess!' says Lord Wychester.  'You're too
+fat for decent company.  My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial
+to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but _my_ taste runs to slim
+blondes.'"
+
+No amusement was excited by Lord Wychester's second sally.  In the
+world she knew, it would have provoked a shout of laughter.  The boy's
+gravity disquieted her.
+
+"Did you laugh?" he asked.
+
+"Everybody," she answered, pitifully, "give her the laugh."
+
+He sighed--somewhat wistfully.  "I wish," he said, "that _you_ hadn't."
+
+"Why not!" she wondered, in genuine surprise.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why, dear!" she exclaimed, a note of alarm in her voice.  "It isn't
+bad manners!  Anyhow," she qualified, quick to catch her cue, "I didn't
+laugh much.  I hardly laughed at all.  I don't believe I _did_ laugh."
+
+"I'm glad," he said.
+
+Then, "I'm sure of it," she ventured, boldly; and she observed with
+relief that he was not incredulous.
+
+"Did the Duchess cry?"
+
+"Oh, my, no!  'Waiter,' says the Duchess, 'open another bottle of that
+wine.  I feel faint.'"
+
+"What did Lord Wychester do then?"
+
+"He paid for the wine."  It occurred to her that she might now surely
+delight him.  "Then he wanted to buy a bottle for me," she continued,
+eagerly, "just to spite the Duchess.  'If _she_ can have wine,' says
+he, 'there isn't no good reason why _you_ got to go dry.'  But I
+couldn't see it.  'Oh, come on!' says he.  'What's the matter with you?
+Have a drink.'  'No, you don't!' says I.  'Why not?' says he."  She
+drew the boy a little closer, and, in the pause she patted his hand.
+"'Because,' says I," she whispered, tenderly, "'I got a son; and I
+_don't want him to do no drinking when he grows up_!'"  She paused
+again--that the effect of the words and of the caress might not be
+interrupted.  "'Come off!' says Lord Wychester," she went on; "'you
+haven't got no son.'  'You wouldn't think to look at me,' says I, 'that
+I got a son seven years old the twenty-third of last month.'  'To the
+tall timber!' says he.  'You're too young and pretty.  I'll give you a
+thousand dollars for a kiss.'  'No, you don't!' says I.  'Why not?'
+says he.  'Because,' says I, 'you don't.'  'I'll give you two
+thousand,' says he."
+
+She was interrupted by the boy; his arms were anxiously stealing round
+her neck.
+
+"'Three thousand!' says he."
+
+"Mother," the boy whispered, "did you give it to him?"
+
+Again, she drew him to her: as all mothers will, when, in the twilight,
+they tell tales to their children, and the climax approaches.
+
+"'Four thousand!' says he."
+
+"Mother," the boy implored, "tell me quick!  What did you say?"
+
+"'Lord Wychester,' says I, 'I don't give kisses,' says I, 'because my
+son doesn't want me to do no such thing!  No, sir!  Not for a million
+dollars!'"
+
+She was then made happy by his rapturous affection; and she now first
+perceived--in a benighted way--that virtue was more appealing to him
+than the sum of her physical attractions.  Upon this new thought she
+pondered.  She was unable to reduce it to formal terms, to be sure; but
+she felt a new delight, a new hope, and was uplifted, though she knew
+not why.  Later--at the crisis of their lives--the perception returned
+with sufficient strength to illuminate her way....
+
+
+Presently the boy broke in upon her musing.  "It was blondes Lord
+Wychester liked," he remarked, with pride; "wasn't it, mother?"
+
+"Slim blondes," she corrected.
+
+"Bleached blondes?"
+
+She was appalled by the disclosure; and she was taken unaware: nor did
+she dare discover the extent, the significance, of this new
+sophistication, nor whence it came, lest she be all at once involved in
+a tangle of explanation, from which there could be no sure issue.  She
+sighed; her head drooped, until it rested on his shoulder, her wet
+lashes against his cheek--despairing, helpless.
+
+"What makes you sad?" he asked.
+
+Then she gathered impetuous courage.  She must be calm, she knew; but
+she must divert him.  "See," she began, "what it says about your mother
+in the paper!"  She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome
+description of the great Multon ball--the list of fashionables, the
+costumes.  "Here it is!  'She was the loveliest woman at the dance.'
+That's me.  'All the men said so.  What if she is a bleached blonde?
+Some people says that bleached blondes is no good.  It's a lie!'" she
+cried, passionately, to the bewilderment of the boy.  "'God help them!
+There's honest people everywhere.'  Are you listening?  Here's more
+about me.  'She does the best she can.  Maybe she _don't_ amount to
+much, maybe she _is_ a bleached blonde; but she does the best she can.
+She never done no wrong in all her life.  She loves her son too much
+for that.  Oh, she loves her son!  She'd rather die than have him feel
+ashamed of her.  There isn't a better woman in the world, There isn't a
+better mother----'"
+
+He clapped his hands.
+
+"Don't you believe it?" she demanded.  "Don't you believe what the
+paper says?"
+
+"It's true!" he cried.  "It's all true!"
+
+"How do you know," she whispered, intensely, "that it's all true?"
+
+"I--just--_feel_ it!"
+
+They were interrupted by the clock.  It struck seven times....
+
+
+In great haste and alarm she put him from her knee; and she caught up
+her hat and cloak, and kissed him, and ran out, calling back her
+good-night, again and again, as she clattered down the stairs....  In
+the streets of the place to which she hurried, there were flaming
+lights, the laughter of men and flaunting women, the crash and rumble
+and clang of night-traffic, the blatant clamour of the pleasures of
+night; shuffling, blear-eyed derelicts of passion, creeping beldames,
+peevish children, youth consuming itself; rags and garish jewels,
+hunger, greasy content--a confusion of wretchedness, of greed and grim
+want, of delirious gaiety, of the sins that stalk in darkness....
+Through it all she brushed, unconscious--lifted from it by the magic of
+this love: dwelling only upon the room that overlooked the river, and
+upon the child within; remembering the light in his eyes and the
+tenderness of his kiss.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _A Garden of Lies_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Celebrity in Love_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE_
+
+While the boy sat alone, in wistful idleness, there came a knock at the
+door--a pompous rat-tat-tat, with a stout tap-tap or two added, once
+and for all to put the quality of the visitor beyond doubt.  The door
+was then cautiously pushed ajar to admit the head of the personage thus
+impressively heralded.   And a most extraordinary head it was--of
+fearsome aspect; nothing but long and intimate familiarity could resign
+the beholder to the unexpected appearance of it.  Long, tawny hair, now
+sadly unkempt, fell abundantly from crown to shoulders; and hair as
+tawny, as luxuriantly thick, almost as long, completely covered the
+face, from every part of which it sprang, growing shaggy and rank at
+the eyebrows, which served to ambush two sharp little eyes: so that the
+whole bore a precise resemblance to an ill-natured Skye terrier.  It is
+superfluous to add that this was at once the face and the fortune of
+Toto, the Dog-faced Man, known in private life, to as many intimates as
+a jealous profession can tolerate, as Mr. Poddle: for the present
+disabled from public appearance by the quality of the air supplied to
+the exhibits at Hockley's Musee, his lungs being, as he himself
+expressed it, "not gone, by no means, but gittin' restless."
+
+"Mother gone?" asked the Dog-faced Man.
+
+"She has gone, Mr. Poddle," the boy answered, "to dine with the Mayor."
+
+"Oh!" Mr. Poddle ejaculated.
+
+"Why do you say that?" the boy asked, frowning uneasily.  "You always
+say, 'Oh!'"
+
+"Do I?  'Oh!'  Like that?"
+
+"Why do you do it?"
+
+"Celebrities," replied Mr. Poddle, testily, entering at that moment,
+"is not accountable.  Me bein' one, don't ask me no questions."
+
+"Oh!" said the boy.
+
+Mr. Poddle sat himself in a chair by the window: and there began to
+catch and vent his breath; but whether in melancholy sighs or snorts of
+indignation it was impossible to determine.  Having by these violent
+means restored himself to a state of feeling more nearly normal, he
+trifled for a time with the rings flashing on his thin, white fingers,
+listlessly brushed the dust from the skirt of his rusty frock coat,
+heaved a series of unmistakable sighs: whereupon--and by this strange
+occupation the boy was quite fascinated--he drew a little comb, a
+little brush, a little mirror, from his pocket; and having set up the
+mirror in a convenient place, he proceeded to dress his hair, with
+particular attention to the eyebrows, which, by and by, he tenderly
+braided into two limp little horns: so that 'twas not long before he
+looked much less like a frowsy Skye terrier, much more like an owl.
+
+"The hour, Richard," he sighed, as he deftly parted his hair in the
+middle of his nose, "has came!"
+
+With such fond and hopeless feeling were these enigmatical words
+charged that the boy could do nothing but heave a sympathetic sigh.
+
+"You see before you, Richard, what you never seen before.  A man in the
+clutches," Mr. Poddle tragically pursued, giving a vicious little twist
+to his left eyebrow, "of the tender passion!"
+
+"Oh!" the boy muttered.
+
+"'Fame,'" Mr. Poddle continued, improvising a newspaper head-line, to
+make himself clear, "'No Shield Against the Little God's Darts.'  Git
+me?  The high and the low gits the arrows in the same place."
+
+"Does it--hurt?"
+
+"Hurt!" cried Mr. Poddle, furiously.  "It's perfectly excrugiating!
+Hurt?  Why----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, "but you are biting your
+mustache."
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, promptly.  "Glad to know it.  Can't afford
+to lose no more hirsute adornment.  And I'm give to ravagin' it in
+moments of excitement, especially sorrow.  Always tell me."
+
+"I will," the boy gravely promised.
+
+"The Pink-eyed Albino," Mr. Poddle continued, now released from the
+necessity of commanding his feelings, in so far as the protection of
+his hair was concerned, "was fancy; the Circassian Beauty was
+fascination; the Female Sampson was the hallugination of sky-blue
+tights; but the Mexican Sword Swallower," he murmured, with a
+melancholy wag, "is----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle," the boy warned, "you are--at it again."
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, hastily eliminating the danger.  "What I was
+about to remark," was his lame conclusion, "was that the Mexican Sword
+Swallower is _love_."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The Dog-faced Man snapped a sigh in two.  "Richard," he insinuated
+suspiciously, "what you sayin', 'Oh!' for?"
+
+"Wasn't the Bearded Lady, love?"
+
+"Love!" laughed Mr. Poddle.  "Ha, ha!  Far from it!  Not so!  The
+Bearded Lady was the snare of ambition.  'Marriage Arranged Between the
+Young Duke of Blueblood and the Daughter of the Clothes-pin King.
+Millions of the Higgleses to Repair the Duke's Shattered Fortunes.'
+Git me?  'Wedding of the Bearded Lady and the Dog-faced Man.  Sunday
+Afternoon at Hockley's Popular Musee.  No Extra Charge for Admission.
+Fabulous Quantity of Human Hair on Exhibition At the Same Instant.
+Hirsute Wonders To Tour the Country at Enormous Expense.'  Git me?
+Same thing.  Love?  Ha, ha!  Not so!  There's no more love in _that_,"
+Mr. Poddle concluded, bitterly, "than----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle, you are----"
+
+"Thanks," faltered Mr. Poddle.  "As I was about to remark when
+you--ah--come to the rescue--love is froze out of high life.  Us
+natural phenomenons is the slaves of our inheritages."
+
+"But you said the Bearded Lady was love at last!"
+
+"'Duke Said To Be Madly In Love With the American Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle
+composedly replied.
+
+"I don't quite--get you?"
+
+"Us celebrities has our secrets.  High life is hollow.  Public must be
+took into account.  'Sacrificed On His Country's Altar.'  Git me?
+'Good of the Profession.'  Broken hearts--and all that."
+
+"Would you have broken the Bearded Lady's heart?"
+
+Mr. Poddle was by this recalled to his own lamentable condition.  "I've
+gone and broke my own," he burst out; "for I'm give to understand that
+the lovely Sword Swallower is got entangled with a tattooed man.  Not,"
+Mr. Poodle hastily added, "with a _real_ tattooed man!  Not by no
+means!  Far from it!  _He's only half done!_ Git me?  His legs is
+finished; and I'm give to understand that the Chinese dragon on his
+back is gettin' near the end of its tail.  There _may_ be a risin' sun
+on his chest, and a snake drawed out on his waist; of that I've heard
+rumors, but I ain't had no reports.  Not," said Mr. Poddle,
+impressively, "what you might call undenigeable reports.  And Richard,"
+he whispered, in great excitement and contempt, "that there half-cooked
+freak won't be done for a year!  He's bein' worked over on the
+installment plan.  And I'm give to understand that she'll wait!  Oh,
+wimmen!" the Dog-faced Man apostrophized.  "Took by shapes and
+complexions----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, diffidently, "but your
+eyebrow----"
+
+"Thanks," Mr. Poddle groaned, his frenzy collapsing.  "As I was about
+to say, wimmen is like arithmetic; there ain't a easy sum in the book."
+
+"Mr. Poddle!"
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, in deep disgust.  "Am I at it again?
+O'erwhelming grief!  This here love will be the ruin of me.  'Bank
+Cashier Defaulted For a Woman.'  I've lost more priceless strands since
+I seen that charming creature than I'll get back in a year.  I've bit
+'em off!  I've tore 'em out!  If this here goes on I'll be a Hairless
+Wonder in a month.  'Suicided For Love.'  Same thing exactly.  And
+what's worse," he continued, dejectedly, "the objeck of my adoration
+don't look at it right.  She takes me for a common audience.  No regard
+for talent.  No appreciation for hair in the wrong place.  'Genius
+Jilted By A Factory Girl.'  And she takes that manufactured article of
+a tattooed man for a regular platform attraction!  Don't seem to
+_know_, Richard, that freaks is born, not made.  What's fame, anyhow?"
+
+The boy did not know.
+
+"Why, cuss me!" the Dog-faced Man exploded, "she treats me as if I was
+dead-headed into the Show!"
+
+"Excuse me, but----"
+
+"Thanks.  God knows, Richard, I ain't in love with her throat and
+stummick.  It ain't because the one's unequalled for resistin'
+razor-edged steel and the other stands unrivalled in its capacity for
+holdin' cold metal.  It ain't her talent, Richard.  No, it ain't her
+talent.  It ain't her beauty.  It ain't even her fame.  It ain't so
+much her massive proportions.  It's just the way she darns stockings.
+Just the way she sits up there on the platform darnin' them stockings
+as if there wasn't no such thing as an admirin' public below.  It's
+just her _self_.  Git me?  'Give Up A Throne To Wed A Butcher's
+Daughter.'  Understand?  Why, God bless you, Richard, if she was a Fiji
+Island Cannibal I'd love her just the same!"
+
+"I think, Mr. Poddle," the boy ventured, "that I'd tell her."
+
+"I did," Mr. Poddle replied.  "Much to my regrets I did.  I writ.
+Worked up a beautiful piece out of 'The Lightning Letter-writer for
+Lovers.'  'Oh, beauteous Sword-Swallower,' I writ, 'pet of the public,
+pride of the sideshow, bright particular star in the constellation of
+natural phenomenons!  One who is not unknown to fame is dazzled by your
+charms.  He dares to lift his stricken eyes, to give vent to the
+tumultuous beatings of his manly bosom, to send you, in fact, this
+note.  And if you want to know who done it, wear a red rose to-night.'
+Well," Mr. Poddle continued, "she seen me give it to the peanut-boy.
+And knowin' who it come from, she writ back.  She writ," Mr. Poddle
+dramatically repeated, "right back."
+
+The pause was so long, so painful, that the boy was moved to inquire
+concerning the answer.
+
+"It stabs me," said Mr. Poddle.
+
+"I think I'd like to know," said the boy.
+
+"'Are you much give,' says she, 'to barkin' in your sleep?'"
+
+A very real tear left the eye of Mr. Poddle, ran down the hair of his
+cheek, changed its course to the eyebrow, and there hung glistening....
+
+
+It was apparent that the Dog-faced Man's thoughts must immediately be
+diverted into more cheerful channels.  "Won't you please read to me,
+Mr. Poddle," said the boy, "what it says in the paper about my mother?"
+
+The ruse was effective.  Mr. Poddle looked up with a start.  "Eh?" he
+ejaculated.
+
+"Won't you?" the boy begged.
+
+"I been talkin' so much, Richard," Mr. Poddle stammered, turning hoarse
+all at once, "that I gone and lost my voice."
+
+He decamped to his room across the hall without another word.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _At Midnight_]
+
+
+
+
+_AT MIDNIGHT_
+
+At midnight the boy had long been sound asleep in bed.  The lamp was
+turned low.  It was very quiet in the room--quiet and shadowy in all
+the tenement....  And the stair creaked; and footfalls shuffled along
+the hall--and hesitated at the door of the place where the child lay
+quietly sleeping; and there ceased.  There was the rumble of a man's
+voice, deep, insistent, imperfectly restrained.  A woman protested.
+The door was softly opened; and the boy's mother stepped in, moving on
+tiptoe, and swiftly turned to bar entrance with her arm.
+
+"Hist!" she whispered, angrily.  "Don't speak so loud.  You'll wake the
+boy."
+
+"Let me in, Millie," the man insisted.  "Aw, come on, now!"
+
+"I can't, Jim.  You know I can't.  Go on home now.  Stop that!  I won't
+marry you.  Let go my arm.  You'll wake the boy, I tell you!"
+
+There was a short scuffle: at the end of which, the woman's arm still
+barred the door.
+
+"Here I ain't seen you in three year," the man complained.  "And you
+won't let me in.  That ain't right, Millie.  It ain't kind to an old
+friend like me.  You didn't used to be that way."
+
+"No," the woman whispered, abstractedly; "there's been a change.  I
+ain't the same as I used to be."
+
+"You ain't changed for the better, Millie.  No, you ain't."
+
+"I don't know," she mused.  "Sometimes I think not.  It ain't because I
+don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I
+don't let you in.  God knows, I like to meet old friends; but----"
+
+It was sufficient.  The man gently took her arm from the way.  He
+stepped in--glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded
+from the lamp--and turned again to the woman.
+
+"Don't wake him!" she said.
+
+They were still standing.  The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad
+at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of
+feature--handsome enough, withal.  He was an acrobat.  Even in the dim
+light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength--of grace
+and agility.  For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body:
+then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy
+on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded
+him watchfully.
+
+"Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained.  "The boy
+knows me."
+
+"But he don't like you."
+
+"Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach.  "Come off!"
+
+"I seen it in his eyes," she insisted.
+
+The man softly laughed.
+
+"Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed.  "You can't tell a mother what
+she sees in her own baby's eyes.  I tell you, Jim, he don't like you.
+He never did."
+
+"That's all fancy, Millie.  Why, he ain't seen me in three year!  And
+you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid.  You're too
+fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly.  "What's got
+into you?  You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have
+you?  Don't you remember what you said to Dick that night?  You said
+Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember?  Remember the doctor
+coming to the hotel?  I'll never forget how you went on.  Never heard a
+woman swear like you before.  Never seen one go on like you went on.
+And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad
+for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him.
+Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what
+was coming.  You didn't want no kid, then!"
+
+"Don't!" she gasped.  "I ain't forgot.  But I'm changed, Jim--since
+then."
+
+He moved a step nearer.
+
+"I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring
+at the window, and through the window to the starry night.  "And Dick's
+dead, now.  I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of--different."
+
+"What's gone and changed you, Millie?"
+
+"I ain't the same!" she repeated.
+
+"What's changed you?"
+
+"And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!"
+
+In the pause, he took her hand.  She seemed not to know it--but let it
+lie close held in his great palm.
+
+"And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked.
+
+"I can't," she answered.  "I don't think of myself no more.  And the
+boy--wouldn't like it."
+
+"You always said you would, if it wasn't for Dick; and Dick ain't here
+no more.  There ain't no harm in loving me now."  He tried to draw her
+to him.  "Aw, come on!" he pleaded.  "You know you like me."
+
+She withdrew her hand--shrank from him.  "Don't!" she said.  "I like
+you, Jim.  You know I always did.  You was always good to me.  I never
+cared much for Dick.  Him and me teamed up pretty well.  That was all.
+It was always you, Jim, that I cared for.  But, somehow, now, I wish
+I'd loved Dick--more than I did.  I feel different, now.  I wish--oh, I
+wish--that I'd loved him!"
+
+The man frowned.
+
+"He's dead," she continued.  "I can't tell him nothing, now.  The
+chance is gone.  But I wish I'd loved him!"
+
+"He never done much for you."
+
+"Yes, he did, Jim!" she answered, quickly.  "He done all a man can do
+for a woman!"
+
+She was smiling--but in an absent way.  The man started.  There was a
+light in her eyes he had never seen before.
+
+"He give me," she said, "the boy!"
+
+"You're crazy about that kid," the man burst out, a violent, disgusted
+whisper.  "You're gone out of your mind."
+
+"No, I ain't," she replied, doggedly.  "I'm different since I got him.
+That's all.  And I'd like Dick to know that I look at him different
+since he died.  I can't love Dick.  I never could.  But I could thank
+him if he was here.  Do you mind what I called the boy?  I don't call
+him Claud now.  I call him--Richard.  It's all I can do to show Dick
+that I'm grateful."
+
+The man caught his breath--in angry impatience.   "Millie,"  he warned,
+"the boy'll grow up."
+
+She put her hands to her eyes.
+
+"He'll grow up and leave you.  What you going to do then?"
+
+"I don't know," she sighed.  "Just--go along."
+
+"You'll be all alone, Millie."
+
+"He loves me!" she muttered.  "He'll never leave me!"
+
+"He's got to, Millie.  He's got to be a man.  You can't keep him."
+
+"Maybe I _can't_ keep him," she replied, in a passionate undertone.
+"Maybe I _do_ love you.  Maybe he'd get to love you, too.  But look at
+him, Jim! See where he lies?"
+
+The man turned towards the bed.
+
+"It's on my side, Jim!  Understand?  He lies there always till I come
+in.  Know why?"
+
+He watched her curiously.
+
+"He'll wake up, Jim, when I lift him over.  That's what he wants.
+He'll wake up and say, 'Is that you, mother?'  And he'll be asleep
+again, God bless him! before I can tell him that it is.  My God!  Jim,
+I can't tell you what it means to come in at night and find him lying
+there.  That little body of a man!  That clean, white soul! I can't
+tell you how I feel, Jim.  It's something a man can't know.  And do you
+think he'd stand for you?  He'd say he would.  Oh, he'd say he would!
+He'd look in my eyes, Jim, and he'd find out what I wanted him to say;
+and he'd _say_ it.  But, Jim, he'd be hurt.  Understand?  He'd think I
+didn't love him any more.  He's only a child--and he'd think I didn't
+love him.  Where'd he sleep, Jim?  Alone?  He couldn't do it.  Don't
+you _see_?  I can't live with nobody, Jim.  And I don't want to.  I
+don't care for myself no more.  I used to, in them days--when you and
+me and Dick and the crowd was all together.  But I don't--no more!"
+
+The man stooped, picked a small stocking from the floor, stood staring
+at it.
+
+"I'm changed," the woman repeated, "since I got the boy."
+
+"I don't know what you'll do, Millie, when he grows up."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"And when he finds out?"
+
+"That's what I'm afraid of," she whispered, hoarsely.  "Somebody'll
+tell him--some day.  He don't know, now.  And I don't want him to know.
+He ain't our kind.  Maybe it's because I keep him here alone.  Maybe
+it's because he don't see nobody.  Maybe it's just because I love him
+so.  I don't know.  But he ain't like us.  It would hurt him to know.
+And I can't hurt him.  I can't!"
+
+The man tossed the stocking away.  It fell upon a heap of little
+under-garments, strewn upon the floor.
+
+"You're a fool, Millie," said he.  "I tell you, he'll leave you.  He'll
+leave you cold--when he grows up--and another woman comes along."
+
+She raised her hand to stop him.  "Don't say that!" she moaned.  "There
+won't be no other woman.  There can't be.  Seems to me I'll want to
+kill the first that comes.  A woman?  What woman?  There won't be none."
+
+"There's _got_ to be a woman."
+
+"What woman?  There ain't a woman in the world fit to--oh," she broke
+off, "don't talk of _him_--and a woman!"
+
+"It'll come, Millie.  He's a man--and there's got to be a woman.  And
+she won't want you.  And you'll be too old, then, to----"
+
+The boy stirred.
+
+"Hist!" she commanded.
+
+They waited.  An arm was tossed--the boy smiled--there was a sigh.  He
+was sound asleep again.
+
+"Millie!"  The man approached.  She straightened to resist him.  "You
+love me, don't you?"
+
+She withdrew.
+
+"You want to marry me?"
+
+Still she withdrew; but he overtook her, and caught her hand.  She was
+now driven to a corner--at bay.  Her face was flushed; there was an
+irresolute light in her eyes--the light, too, of fear.
+
+"Go 'way!" she gasped.  "Leave me alone!"
+
+He put his arm about her.
+
+"Don't!" she moaned.  "You'll wake the boy."
+
+"Millie!" he whispered.
+
+"Let me go, Jim!" she protested, weakly.  "I can't.  Oh, leave me
+alone!  You'll wake the boy.  I can't.  I'd like to.  I--I--I want to
+marry you; but I----"
+
+"Aw, come on!" he pleaded, drawing her close.  And he suddenly found
+her limp in his arms.  "You got to marry me!" he whispered, in triumph.
+"By God! you can't help yourself.  I got you!  I got you!"
+
+"Oh, let me go!"
+
+"No, I won't, Millie.  I'll never let you go."
+
+"For God's sake, Jim!  Jim--oh, don't kiss me!"
+
+The boy stirred again--and began to mutter in his sleep.  At once the
+woman commanded herself.  She stiffened--released herself--pushed the
+man away.  She lifted a hand--until the child lay quiet once more.
+There was meantime breathless silence.  Then she pointed imperiously to
+the door.  The man sullenly held his place.  She tiptoed to the
+door--opened it; again imperiously gestured.  He would not stir.
+
+"I'll go," he whispered, "if you tell me I can come back."
+
+The boy awoke--but was yet blinded by sleep; and the room was dim-lit.
+He rubbed his eyes.  The man and the woman stood rigid in the shadow.
+
+"Is it you, mother?"
+
+There was no resisting her command--her flashing eyes, the passionate
+gesture.  The man moved to the door, muttering that he would come
+back--and disappeared.  She closed the door after him.
+
+"Yes, dear," she answered.  "It is your mother."
+
+"Was there a man with you?"
+
+"It was Lord Wychester," she said, brightly, "seeing me home from the
+party."
+
+"Oh!" he yawned.
+
+"Go to sleep."
+
+He fell asleep at once.  The stair creaked.  The tenement was again
+quiet....
+
+
+He was lying in his mother's place in the bed....  She looked out upon
+the river.  Somewhere, far below in the darkness, the current still ran
+swirling to the sea--where the lights go different ways....  The boy
+was lying in his mother's place.  And before she lifted him, she took
+his warm little hand, and kissed his brow, where the dark curls lay
+damp with the sweat of sleep.  For a long, long time, she sat watching
+him through a mist of glad tears.  The sight of his face, the outline
+of his body under the white coverlet, the touch of his warm flesh: all
+this thrilled her inexpressibly.  Had she been devout, she would have
+thanked God for the gift of a son--and would have found relief....
+When she crept in beside him, she drew him to her, tenderly still
+closer, until he was all contained in her arms; and she forgot all
+else--and fell asleep, untroubled.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _At Midnight_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Meeting by Chance_]
+
+
+
+
+_A MEETING BY CHANCE_
+
+Came, then, into the lives of these two, to work wide and immediate
+changes, the Rev. John Fithian, a curate of the Church of the Lifted
+Cross--a tall, free-moving, delicately spare figure, clad in spotless
+black, with a hint of fashion about it, a dull gold crucifix lying
+suspended upon the breast: pale, long of face, the eye-sockets deep and
+shadowy; hollow-cheeked, the bones high and faintly touched with red;
+with black, straight, damp hair, brushed back from a smooth brow and
+falling in the perfection of neatness to the collar--the whole severe
+and forbidding, indeed, but for saving gray eyes, wherein there lurked,
+behind the patient agony, often displacing it, a tender smile,
+benignant, comprehending, infinitely sympathetic, by which the gloomy
+exterior was lightened and in some surprising way gratefully explained.
+
+
+By chance, on the first soft spring day of that year, the Rev. John
+Fithian, returning from the Neighbourhood Settlement, where he had
+delighted himself with good deeds, done of pure purpose, came near the
+door of the Box Street tenement, distributing smiles, pennies,
+impulsive, genuine caresses, to the children as he went, tipping their
+faces, patting their heads, all in the rare, unquestioned way, being
+not alien to the manner of the poor.  A street piano, at the corner,
+tinkled an air to which a throng of ragged, lean little girls danced in
+the yellow sunshine, dodging trucks and idlers and impatient
+pedestrians with unconcern, colliding and tripping with utmost good
+nature.  The curate was arrested by the voice of a child, singing to
+the corner accompaniment--low, in the beginning, brooding, tentative,
+but in a moment rising sure and clear and tender.  It was not hard for
+the Rev. John Fithian to slip a cassock and surplice upon this wistful
+child, to give him a background of lofty arches and stained windows, to
+frame the whole in shadows.  And, lo! in the chancel of the Church of
+the Lifted Cross there stood an angel, singing.
+
+The boy looked up, a glance of suspicion, of fear; but he was at once
+reassured: there was no guile in the smiling gray eyes of the
+questioner.
+
+"I am waiting," he answered, "for my mother.  She will be home soon."
+
+In a swift, penetrating glance, darting far and deep, dwelling briefly,
+the curate discovered the pathos of the child's life--the unknowing,
+patient outlook, the vague sense of pain, the bewilderment, the wistful
+melancholy, the hopeful determination.
+
+"You, too!" he sighed.
+
+The expression of kindred was not comprehended; but the boy was not
+disquieted by the sigh, by the sudden extinguishment of the beguiling
+smile.
+
+"She has gone," he continued, "to the wedding of Sir Arthur Coll and
+Miss Stillison.  She will have a very good time."
+
+The curate came to himself with a start and a gasp.
+
+"She's a bridesmaid," the boy added.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated the curate.
+
+"Why do you say, 'Oh!'" the boy complained, frowning.  "Everybody says
+that," he went on, wistfully; "and I don't know why."
+
+The curate was a gentleman--acute and courteous.  "A touch of
+indigestion," he answered, promptly, laying a white hand on his black
+waistcoat.  "Oh!  There it is again!"
+
+"Stomach ache?"
+
+"Well, you might call it that."
+
+The boy was much concerned.  "If you come up-stairs," said he,
+anxiously, "I'll give you some medicine.  Mother keeps it for me."
+
+Thus, presently, the curate found himself top-floor rear, in the room
+that overlooked the broad river, the roofs of the city beyond, the
+misty hills: upon which the fading sunshine now fell.  And having
+gratefully swallowed the dose, with a broad, persistent smile, he was
+given a seat by the window, that the beauty of the day, the
+companionship of the tiny craft on the river, the mystery of the
+far-off places, might distract and comfort him.  From the boy, sitting
+upright and prim on the extreme edge of a chair, his feet on the rung,
+his hands on his knees, proceeded a stream of amiable chatter--not the
+less amiable for being grave--to which the curate, compelled to his
+best behavior, listened with attention as amiable, as grave: and this
+concerned the boats, afloat below, the lights on the river, the child's
+mother, the simple happenings of his secluded life.  So untaught was
+this courtesy, spontaneous, native--so did it spring from natural wish
+and perception--that the curate was soon more mystified than
+entertained; and so did the curate's smile increase in gratification
+and sympathy that the child was presently off the chair, lingering half
+abashed in the curate's neighbourhood, soon seated familiarly upon his
+knee, toying with the dull gold crucifix.
+
+"What's this?" he asked.
+
+"It is the symbol," the curate answered, "of the sacrifice of our dear
+Lord and Saviour."
+
+There was no meaning in the words; but the boy held the cross very
+tenderly, and looked long upon the face of the Man there in
+torture--and was grieved and awed by the agony....
+
+
+In the midst of this, the boy's mother entered.  She stopped dead
+beyond the threshold--warned by the unexpected presence to be upon her
+guard.  Her look of amazement changed to a scowl of suspicion.  The
+curate put the boy from his knee.  He rose--embarrassed.  There was a
+space of ominous silence.
+
+"What you doing here?" the woman demanded.
+
+"Trespassing."
+
+She was puzzled--by the word, the smile, the quiet voice.  The whole
+was a new, nonplussing experience.  Her suspicion was aggravated.
+
+"What you been telling the boy?  Eh?  What you been saying about me?
+Hear me?  Ain't you got no tongue?"  She turned to the frightened
+child.  "Richard," she continued, her voice losing all its quality of
+anger, "what lies has this man been telling you about your poor mother?"
+
+The boy kept a bewildered silence.
+
+"What you been lying about?" the woman exclaimed, advancing upon the
+curate, her eyes blazing.
+
+"I have been telling," he answered, still gravely smiling, "the truth."
+
+Her anger was halted--but she was not pacified.
+
+"Telling," the curate repeated, with a little pause, "the truth."
+
+"You been talking about _me_, eh?"
+
+"No; it was of your late husband."
+
+She started.
+
+"I am a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross," the curate
+continued, with unruffled composure, "and I have been telling the exact
+truth concerning----"
+
+"You been lying!" the woman broke in.  "Yes, you have!"
+
+"No--not so," he insisted.  "The exact truth concerning the funeral of
+Dick Slade from the Church of the Lilted Cross.  Your son has told me
+of his father's death--of the funeral, And I have told your son that I
+distinctly remember the occasion.  I have told him, moreover," he
+added, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes faintly
+twinkling, "that his father was--ah--as I recall him--of most
+distinguished appearance."
+
+She was completely disarmed.
+
+
+When, after an agreeable interval, the Rev. John Fithian took his
+leave, the boy's mother followed him from the room, and closed the door
+upon the boy.  "I'm glad," she faltered, "that you didn't give me away.
+It was--kind.  But I'm sorry you lied--like that.  You didn't have to,
+you know.  He's only a child.  It's easy to fool him.  _You_ wouldn't
+have to lie.  But I _got_ to lie.  It makes him happy--and there's
+things he mustn't know.  He _must_ be happy.  I can't stand it when he
+ain't.  It hurts me so.  But," she added, looking straight into his
+eyes, gratefully, "you didn't have to lie.  And--it was kind."  Her
+eyes fell.  "It was--awful kind."
+
+"I may come again?"
+
+She stared at the floor.  "Come again?" she muttered.  "I don't know."
+
+"I should very much like to come."
+
+"What do you want?" she asked, looking up.  "It ain't _me_, is it?"
+
+The curate shook his head.
+
+"Well, what do you want?  I thought you was from the Society.  I
+thought you was an agent come to take him away because I wasn't fit to
+keep him.  But it ain't that.  And it ain't _me_.  What is it you want,
+anyhow?"
+
+"To come again."
+
+She turned away.  He patiently waited.  All at once she looked into his
+eyes, long, deep, intensely--a scrutiny of his very soul.
+
+"You got a good name to keep, ain't you?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he answered.  "And you?"
+
+"It don't matter about me."
+
+"And I may come?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Renunciation_]
+
+
+
+
+_RENUNCIATION_
+
+After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street
+tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the
+intimacy to extend--not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr.
+Poddle.  It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind,
+blowing in from the sea.  Most the curate came at evening, when the
+breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the
+gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities,
+not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and
+beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the
+hours with wonder and strange delight.  Sometimes, the boy sang--his
+mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly.
+And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to
+the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless
+lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.
+
+"I want the boy's voice," he said.
+
+She gave no sign of agitation.  "His voice?" she asked, quietly.
+"Ain't the boy's _self_ nothing to your church?"
+
+"Not," he answered, "to the church."
+
+"Not to you?"
+
+"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+He lifted his eyebrows--in amazed comprehension.  "I must say, then,"
+he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"
+
+"The boy," she answered.
+
+For a little while she was silent--vacantly contemplating the bare
+floor.  There had been no revelation.  She was not taken unaware.  She
+had watched his purpose form.  Long before, she had perceived the issue
+approaching, and had bravely met it.  But it was all now definite and
+near.  She found it hard to command her feeling--bitter to cut the
+trammels of her love for the child.
+
+"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up.  "Boy sopranos is
+scarce.  You can't have him cheap."
+
+"Of course!" he hastened to say.  "The church will pay."
+
+"Money?  It ain't money I want."
+
+To this there was nothing to say.  The curate was in the dark--and
+quietly awaited enlightenment.
+
+"Take him!" she burst out, rising.  "My God! just you take him.  That's
+all I want.  Understand me?  I want to get rid of him."
+
+He watched her in amazement.  For a time she wandered about the room,
+distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her
+hand over her eyes--a gesture of weariness and despair.  Then she faced
+him.
+
+"Take him," she said, her voice hoarse.  "Take him away from me.  I
+ain't fit to have him.  Understand?  He's got to grow up into a man.
+And I can't teach him how.  Take him.  Take him altogether.  Make
+him--like yourself.  Before you come," she proceeded, now feverishly
+pacing the floor, "I never knew that men was good.  No man ever looked
+in my eyes the way you do.  I know them--oh, I know them! And when my
+boy grows up, I want him to look in the eyes of women the way you
+look--in mine.  Just that!  Only that!  If only, oh, if only my son
+will look in the eyes of women the way you look in mine!  Understand?
+I _want_ him to.  But I can't teach him how.  I don't know enough.  I
+ain't good enough."
+
+The curate rose.
+
+"You can't take his voice and leave his soul," she went on.  "You got
+to take his soul.  You got to make it--like your own."
+
+"Not like mine!"
+
+"Just," she said, passionately, "like yours.  Don't you warn me!" she
+flashed.  "I know the difference between your soul and mine.  I know
+that when his soul is like yours he won't love me no more.  But I can't
+help that.  I got to do without him.  I got to live my life--and let
+him live his.  It's the way with mothers and sons.  God help the
+mothers!  It's the way of the world....  And he'll go with you," she
+added.  "I'll get him so he'll be glad to go.  It won't be nice to
+do--but I can do it.  Maybe you think I can't.  Maybe you think I love
+him too much.  It ain't that I love him too much.  It's because I love
+him _enough_!"
+
+"You offer the boy to me?"
+
+"Will you take him--voice and soul?"
+
+"I will take him," said the curate, "soul and voice."
+
+She began at once to practice upon the boy's love for her--this
+skillfully, persistently: without pity for herself or him.  She sighed,
+wept, sat gloomy for hours together: nor would she explain her sorrow,
+but relentlessly left it to deal with his imagination, by which it was
+magnified and touched with the horror of mystery.  It was not
+hard--thus to feign sadness, terror, despair: to hint misfortune,
+parting, unalterable love.  Nor could the boy withstand it; by this
+depression he was soon reduced to a condition of apprehension and grief
+wherein self-sacrifice was at one with joyful opportunity.  Dark days,
+these--hours of agony, premonition, fearful expectation.  And when they
+had sufficiently wrought upon him, she was ready to proceed.
+
+One night she took him in her lap, in the old close way, in which he
+loved to be held, and sat rocking, for a time, silently.
+
+"Let us talk, dear," she said.
+
+"I think I'm too sick," he sighed.  "I just want to lie here--and not
+talk."
+
+He had but expressed her own desire--to have him lie there: not to
+talk, but just to feel him lying in her arms.
+
+"We must," she said.
+
+Something in her voice--something distinguishable from the recent days
+as deep and real--aroused the boy.  He touched the lashes of her
+eyes--and found them wet.
+
+"Why are you crying?" he asked.  "Oh, tell me, mother!  Tell me _now_!"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"I'm sick," he muttered.  "I--I--think I'm very sick."
+
+"Something has happened, dear," she said.  "I'm going to tell you
+what."  She paused--and in the pause felt his body grow tense in a
+familiar way.  For a moment the prospect frightened her.  She felt,
+vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely
+delicate--which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate.
+"You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich.
+But we're not, any more."  It was a poor lie--she realized that: and
+was half ashamed.  "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly.  "A
+man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds
+and lovely dresses.  She hasn't anything--any more."  She had conceived
+a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed
+thing--but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet
+doubted her.  "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly.
+"She will have to stop having good times, I guess.  She will have to go
+to work."
+
+He straightened in her lap.  "No, no!" he cried, gladly.  "_I'll_ work!"
+
+Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant
+consciousness of his love--to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out
+with pain.  But she restrained all this--harshly, pitilessly.  She had
+no mercy upon herself.
+
+"I'll work!" he repeated.
+
+"How?" she asked.  "You don't know how."
+
+"Teach me."
+
+She laughed--an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him.
+"Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"
+
+He sighed.
+
+"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."
+
+"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."
+
+"Yes; but----"
+
+"But what?  Tell me quick, mother!"
+
+"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy.  Anyhow, dear," she
+continued, "I would have to work.  We are very poor.  You see, dear, it
+takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you.  And, then,
+dear, you see----"
+
+He waited--somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice.  It
+was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.
+
+"You see," she gasped, "you eat--quite a bit."
+
+"I'll not eat much," he promised.  "And I'll not want new clothes.  And
+it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."
+
+She would not agree.
+
+"Tell me!" he commanded.
+
+"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."
+
+"Would you come, too?"
+
+"No," she answered.
+
+He did not yet comprehend.  "Would I go--alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All alone?"
+
+"Alone!"
+
+Quiet fell upon all the world--in the twilighted room, in the tenement,
+in the falling night without, where no breeze moved.  The child sought
+to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom--then
+stirred no more.  The lights were flashing into life on the
+river--wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea....  Some one
+stumbled past the door--grumbling maudlin wrath.
+
+"There is no other way," the mother said.
+
+There was no response--a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.
+
+"And I would go to see you--quite often."
+
+She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.
+
+"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."
+
+"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do
+without me?"
+
+It was a crucial question--so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly
+portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution
+departed.  What would she do without him?  God knew! But she commanded
+herself.
+
+"I would not have to work," she said.
+
+He turned her face to the light--looked deep in her eyes, searching for
+the truth.  She met his glance without wavering.  Then, discerning the
+effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and
+concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most
+poignant, she lied.
+
+"I would be happier," she said, "without you."
+
+A moan escaped him.
+
+"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He fell back upon her bosom....
+
+
+There was no delay.  'Twas all done in haste.  The night came.  Gently
+the curate took the child from her arms.
+
+"Good-bye," she said.
+
+"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered.  "I am not crying."
+
+"Good-bye, dear."
+
+"Mother, I am not crying."
+
+"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish.  "Good-bye.  Be a
+good boy."
+
+He took the curate's hand.  They moved to the door--but there turned
+and lingered.  While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling
+a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his
+eyes, against his will, some reproach.  Perceiving this, she staggered
+towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there
+stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying.  Then she levelled a
+finger at the curate.
+
+"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Renunciation_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _In the Current_]
+
+
+
+
+_IN THE CURRENT_
+
+Seven o'clock struck.  It made no impression upon her.  Eight
+o'clock--nine o'clock.  It was now dark.  Ten o'clock.  She did not
+hear.  Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in
+her hand, she kept watch on the river--but did not see the river: but
+saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart.
+Eleven o'clock.  Ghostly moonlight filled the room.  The tenement,
+restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep.  Twelve
+o'clock.  She had not moved: nor dared she move.  There was a knock at
+the door--a quick step behind her.  She turned in alarm.
+
+"Millie!"
+
+She rose.  Voice and figure were well known to her.  She started
+forward--but stopped dead.
+
+"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.
+
+"Yes, Millie.  It's me--come back.  You don't feel the way you did
+before, do you, girl?"  He suddenly subdued his voice--as though
+recollecting a caution.  "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he
+asked.
+
+"Go 'way!" she complained.  "Leave me alone."
+
+He came nearer.
+
+"Give me a show, Jim," she begged.  "Go 'way.  It ain't fair to
+come--now.  Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer
+approach, her voice rising shrilly.  "It ain't fair----"
+
+"Hist!" he interrupted.  "You'll wake the----"
+
+She laughed harshly.  "Wake what?" she mocked.  "Eh, Jim?  What'll I
+wake?"
+
+"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed.  "You'll wake the boy."
+
+"Boy!" she laughed.  "What boy?  There ain't no boy.  Look here!" she
+cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet,
+wildly tossing the pillows to the floor.  "What'll I wake?  Eh, Jim?
+Where's the boy I'll wake?"  She turned upon him.  "What you saying
+'Hist!' for?  Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh.  "Talk as loud as you
+like, Jim.  You don't need to care what you say or how you say it.
+There ain't nobody here to mind you.  For I tell you," she stormed,
+"there ain't no boy--no more!"
+
+He caught her hand.
+
+"Let go my hand!" she commanded.  "Keep off, Jim!  I ain't in no temper
+to stand it--to-night."
+
+He withdrew.  "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't----"
+
+"Dead?" she laughed.  "No.  I give him away.  He was different from us.
+I didn't have no right to keep him.  I give him to a parson.  Because,"
+she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up.  And he ain't here
+no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room.  "I'm all
+alone--now."
+
+"Poor girl!" he muttered.
+
+She was tempted by this sympathy.  "Go home, Jim," she said.  "It ain't
+fair to stay.  I'm all alone, now--and it ain't treating me right."
+
+"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."
+
+She flung out her arms--in dissent and hopelessness.
+
+"No, you ain't," he continued.  "You've give him up.  You're all alone.
+You can't go on--alone.  Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want
+you.  Come to me!"
+
+She wavered.
+
+"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended.
+"You're all alone.  You've lost him.  Come to me!"
+
+"Lost him?" she mused.  "No--not that.  If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take
+you.  If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you.
+I've give him up; but I ain't lost him.  Maybe," she proceeded,
+eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up.  He loves me, Jim;
+he'll not forget.  I know he's different from us.  You can't tell a
+mother nothing about such things as that.  God!" she muttered, clasping
+her hands, "how strangely different he is.  And every day he'll change.
+Every day he'll be--more different.  That's what I want.  That's why I
+give him up.  To make him--more different!  But maybe," she continued,
+her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up,
+and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more
+different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you
+listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember!
+Maybe, he'll take me in.  Lost him?" she asked.  "How do you know that?
+Go to you, Jim?  Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait?  I
+can't! Don't you understand?  When the time comes, he might ask
+me--where you was."
+
+"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested.  "You're just plain crazy."
+
+"Crazy?  Maybe, I am.  To love and hope!  Crazy?  Maybe, I am.  But,
+Jim, mothers is all that way."
+
+"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.
+
+"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."
+
+"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."
+
+"Keep back!" she cried.
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+"You'll make a cat of me.  I warn you, Jim!"
+
+"You can't keep me off.  You said you loved me.  You do love me.  You
+can't help yourself.  You got to marry me."
+
+She retreated.  "Leave me alone!" she screamed.  "I can't.  Don't you
+see how it is?  Quit that, now, Jim!  You ain't fair.  Take your arms
+away.  God help me!  I love you, you great big brute!  You know I do.
+You ain't fair....  Stop!  You hurt me."  She was now in his arms--but
+still resisting.  "Leave me alone,"  she whimpered.  "You hurt me.  You
+ain't fair.  You know I love you--and you ain't fair....  Oh, God
+forgive me!  Don't do that again, Jim.  Stop!  Let me go.  For God's
+sake, stop kissing me!  I like you, Jim.  I ain't denying that.  But
+let me go....  Please, Jim!  Don't hold me so tight.  It ain't fair....
+Oh, it ain't fair...."
+
+She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly
+sobbing.
+
+"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.
+
+Still she sobbed.
+
+"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly.  "It's all right.  I
+won't hurt you.  You love me, and I love you.  That's all right,
+Millie.  What's the matter with you, girl?  Lift your face, won't you?"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Why not, Millie?"
+
+"I don't know," she whispered.  "I think I'm--ashamed."
+
+There was no longer need to hold her fast.  His arms relaxed.  She did
+not move from them.  And while they stood thus, in the moonlight,
+falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring,
+the while, all the reassuring words at his command.
+
+"The boy's gone," he said, at last.  "You'd be all alone without me.
+He ain't here.  But he's well looked after, Millie.  Don't you fret
+about him.  By this time he's sound asleep."
+
+She slipped from his embrace.  He made no effort to detain her:
+conceiving her secure in his possession.  A moment she stood staring at
+the floor, lost to her surroundings: then quickly turned to look upon
+him--her face aglow with some high tenderness.
+
+"Asleep?" she asked, her voice low, tremulous.
+
+"Sound asleep."
+
+"How do you know that he's asleep?" she pursued.  "Asleep?  No; he
+ain't asleep."  She paused--now woebegone.  "He's wide awake--waiting,"
+she went on.  "He's waiting--just like he used to do--for me to come
+in....  He's awake.  Oh, sore little heart!  He's lying alone in the
+dark--waiting.  And his mother will not come....  Last night, Jim, when
+I come in, he was there in the bed, awake and waiting.  'Oh, mother,'
+says he, 'I'm glad you're come at last.  I been waiting so long.  It's
+lonesome here in the dark without you.  And to-morrow I'll wake, and
+wait, and wait; but you will not come!'  He's awake, Jim.  Don't you
+tell me no different.  The pillow's wet with his tears....  Lonely
+child--waiting for me!  Oh, little heart of my baby!  Oh, sore little
+heart!"
+
+"Millie!"
+
+"It ain't no use no more, Jim.  You better go home.  I'm all alone.  My
+child's not here.  But--he's somewhere.  And it's him I love."
+
+The man sighed and went away....
+
+
+Left alone, she put the little room in order and made the bed, blinded
+by tears, her steps uncertain: muttering incoherently of her child,
+whimpering broken snatches of lullaby songs.  When there was no more
+work left for her hands to do, she staggered to the bureau, and from
+the lower drawer took a great, flaunting doll, which she had there
+kept, poor soul! against the time when her arms would be empty, her
+bosom aching for a familiar weight upon it.  And for a time she sat
+rocking the cold counterfeit, crooning, faintly singing, caressing it;
+but she had known the warmth, the sweet restlessness, the soft,
+yielding form of the living child, and could not be content.
+Presently, in a surge of disgust, she flung the substitute violently
+from her.
+
+"It ain't no baby," she moaned, putting her hands to her face.  "It's
+only a doll!"
+
+She sank limp to the floor.  There she lay prone--the moonlight falling
+softly upon her, but healing her not at all.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _In the Current_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Chorister_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE CHORISTER_
+
+The Rev. John Fithian lived alone with a man-servant in a
+wide-windowed, sombre, red old house, elbowed by tenements, near the
+Church of the Lifted Cross--once a fashionable quarter: now mean,
+dejected, incongruously thronged, and fast losing the last appearances
+of respectability.  Sombre without--half-lit, silent, vast within: the
+whole intolerant of frivolity, inharmony, garishness, ugliness, but yet
+quite free of gloom and ghostly suggestion.  The boy tiptoed over the
+thick carpets, spoke in whispers, eyed the shadowy corners--sensitive
+to impressions, forever alert: nevertheless possessing a fine feeling
+of security and hopefulness; still wistful, often weeping in the night,
+but not melancholy.  Responsive to environment, by nature harmonious
+with his new surroundings, he presently moved through the lofty old
+rooms with a manner reflecting their own--the same gravity, serenity,
+old-fashioned grace: expressing even their stateliness in a quaint and
+childish way.  Thus was the soil of his heart prepared for the seed of
+a great change.
+
+
+By and by the curate enlightened the child concerning sin and the
+Vicarious Sacrifice.  This was when the leaves were falling from the
+trees in the park--a drear, dark night: the wind sweeping the streets
+in violent gusts, the rain lashing the windowpanes.  Night had come
+unnoticed--swiftly, intensely: in the curate's study a change from gray
+twilight to firelit shadows.  The boy was squatted on the hearth-rug,
+disquieted by the malicious beating at the window, glad to be in the
+glow of the fire: his visions all of ragged men and women cowering from
+the weather.
+
+"It is time, now," the curate sighed, "that I told you the story."
+
+"What story?"
+
+"The story of the Man who died for us."
+
+The boy turned--in wonderment.  "I did not know," he said, quickly,
+"that a man had died for us.  What was his name?  Why did he do it?  My
+mother never told me that story."
+
+"I think she does not know it."
+
+"Then I'll tell her when I learn."
+
+"Perhaps," said the curate, "she will like to hear it--from you."
+
+Very gently, then, in his deep, mellifluous voice--while the rain beat
+upon the windows, crying out the sorrows of the poor--the curate
+unfolded the poignant story: the terms simple, the recital clear,
+vivid, complete....  And to the heart of this child the appeal was
+immediate and irresistible.
+
+"And they who sin," the curate concluded, "crucify Him again."
+
+"I love that Jesus!" the boy sobbed.  "I love Him--almost as much as
+mother."
+
+"Almost?"
+
+The boy misunderstood.  He felt reproved.  He flushed--ashamed that the
+new love had menaced the old.  "No," he answered; "but I love Him very
+much."
+
+"Not as much?"
+
+"Oh, I could not!"
+
+The boy was never afterwards the same.  All that was inharmonious in
+life--the pain and poverty and unloveliness--became as sin: a
+continuous crucifixion, hateful, wringing the heart....
+
+
+Late in the night, when he lay sleepless, sick for his mother's
+presence, her voice, her kisses, her soothing touch, the boy would rise
+to sit at the window--there to watch shadowy figures flit through the
+street-lamp's circle of light.  Once he fancied that his mother came
+thus out of the night, that for a moment she paused with upturned
+glance, then disappeared in woe and haste: returning, halted again; but
+came no more....
+
+
+At rare intervals the boy's mother came to the curate's door.  She
+would not enter: but timidly waited for her son, and then went with him
+to the park, relieved to be away from the wide, still house, her
+spirits and self-confidence reviving with every step.  One mellow
+evening, while they sat together in the dusk, an ill-clad man, gray and
+unkempt, shuffled near.
+
+"Mother," the boy whispered, gripping her hand, "he is looking at us."
+
+She laughed.  "Let him look!" said she.  "It don't matter."
+
+The man staggered to the bench--heavily sat down: limp and shameless,
+his head hanging.
+
+"Let us go away!" the boy pleaded.
+
+"Why, darling?" his mother asked, puzzled.  "What's the matter with
+you, anyhow?"  She looked at him--realizing some subtle change in him,
+bewildered by it: searching eagerly for the nature and cause.  "You
+didn't used to be like that," she said.
+
+"I don't like him.  He's wicked.  He frightens me."
+
+The man slipped suddenly from the bench--sprawling upon the walk.  The
+woman laughed.
+
+"Don't laugh!" the boy exclaimed--a cry of reproach, not free of
+indignation.  "Oh, mother," he complained, putting her hand to his
+cheek, "how could you!"
+
+She did not answer.  The derelict picked himself up, whining in a
+maudlin way.
+
+"How could you!" the boy repeated.
+
+"Oh," said she, lightly, "he's all right.  He won't hurt us."
+
+"He's wicked!"
+
+"He's drunk.  It don't matter.  What's come over you, dear?"
+
+"I'm afraid," said the boy.  "He's sinful."
+
+"He's only drunk, poor man!"
+
+High over the houses beyond, the steeple of the Church of the Lifted
+Cross pierced the blue-black sky.  It was tipped with a blazing
+cross--a great cross, flaming in the night: a symbol of sacrifice, a
+hope, a protest, raised above the feverish world.  To this the boy
+looked.  It transported him far from the woman whose hand he clutched.
+
+"They who sin," he muttered, his eyes still turned to the lifted cross,
+"crucify the dear Lord again!"
+
+His mother was both mystified and appalled.  She followed his
+glance--but saw only the familiar landmark: an illuminated cross,
+topping a steeple.
+
+"For God's sake, Richard!" she demanded, "what you talking about?"
+
+He did not hear.
+
+"You ain't sick, are you?" she continued.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she implored.  "Oh, tell your mother!"
+
+He loosened his hand from her clasp, withdrew it: but instantly caught
+her hand again, and kissed it passionately.  So much concerned was she
+for his physical health that the momentary shrinking escaped her.
+
+"You're sick," she said.  "I know you are.  You're singing too much in
+the church."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you're eating too much lemon pie," she declared, anxiously.
+"You're too fond of that.  It upsets your stomach.  Oh, Richard!
+Shame, dear!  I told you not to."
+
+"You told me not to eat _much_," he said.  "So I don't eat any--to make
+sure."
+
+She was aware of the significance of this sacrifice--and kissed him
+quickly in fond approval.  Then she turned up his coat-sleeve.  "The
+fool!" she cried.  "You got cold.  That's what's the matter with you.
+Here it is November!  And he ain't put your flannels on.  That there
+curate," she concluded, in disgust, "don't know nothing about raising a
+boy."
+
+"I'm quite well, mother."
+
+"Then what's the matter with you?"
+
+"I'm sad!" he whispered.
+
+She caught him to her breast--blindly misconceiving the meaning of
+this: in her ignorance concluding that he longed for her, and was sick
+because of that....  And while she held him close, the clock of the
+Church of the Lifted Cross chimed seven.  In haste she put him down,
+kissed him, set him on his homeward way; and she watched him until he
+was lost in the dusk and distance of the park.  Then, concerned,
+bewildered, she made haste to that quarter of the city--that swarming,
+flaring, blatant place--where lay her occupation for the night.
+
+Near Christmas, in a burst of snowy weather, the boy sang his first
+solo at the Church of the Lifted Cross: this at evening.  His mother,
+conspicuously gowned, somewhat overcome by the fashion of the place,
+which she had striven to imitate--momentarily chagrined by her
+inexplicable failure to be in harmony--seated herself obscurely, where
+she had but an infrequent glimpse of his white robe, wistful face,
+dark, curling hair.  She had never loved him more proudly--never before
+realized that his value extended beyond the region of her arms: never
+before known that the babe, the child, the growing boy, mothered by
+her, nursed at her breast, her possession, was a gift to the world,
+sweet and inspiring.  "Angels, ever bright and fair!"  She felt the
+thrill of his tender voice; perceived the impression: the buzz, the
+subsiding confusion, the spell-bound stillness.  "Take, oh, take me to
+your care!"  It was in her heart to strike her breasts--to cry out that
+this was her son, born of her; her bosom his place....
+
+When the departing throng had thinned in the aisle, she stepped from
+the pew, and stood waiting.  There passed, then, a lady in rich
+attire--sweet-faced, of exquisite manner.  A bluff, ruddy young man
+attended her.
+
+"Did you like the music?" he asked--a conventional question: everywhere
+repeated.
+
+"Perfectly lovely!" she replied.  "A wonderful voice!  And such a
+pretty child!"
+
+"I wonder," said he, "who the boy can be?"
+
+Acting upon ingenuous impulse, the boy's mother overtook the man,
+timidly touched his elbow, looked into his eyes, her own bright with
+proud love.
+
+"He is my son," she said.
+
+The lady turned in amazement.  In a brief, appraising glance, she
+comprehended the whole woman; the outré gown, the pencilled eyebrows,
+the rouged cheeks, the bleached hair.  She took the man's arm.
+
+"Come!" she said.
+
+The man yielded.  He bowed--smiled in an embarrassed way, flushing to
+his sandy hair: turned his back.
+
+"How strange!" the lady whispered.
+
+The woman was left alone in the aisle--not chagrined by the rebuff,
+being used to this attitude, sensitive no longer: but now knowing, for
+the first time, that the world into which her child had gone would not
+accept her....  The church was empty.  The organ had ceased.  One by
+one the twinkling lights were going out.  The boy came bounding down
+the aisle.  With a glad little cry he leaped into her waiting arms....
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Chorister_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Alienation_]
+
+
+
+
+_ALIENATION_
+
+This night, after a week of impatient expectation, they were by the
+curate's permission to spend together in the Box Street tenement.  It
+was the boy's first return to the little room overlooking the river.
+Thither they hurried through the driving snow, leaning to the blasts,
+unconscious of the bitterness of the night: the twain in high
+spirits--the boy chattering, merrily, incoherently, as he trotted at
+his silent mother's side.  Very happy, now, indeed, they raced up the
+stair, rioting up flight after flight, to top floor rear, where there
+was a cheery fire, a kettle bubbling on the stove, a lamp turned low--a
+feeling of warmth and repose and welcome, which the broad window,
+noisily shaken by a hearty winter wind from the sea, pleasantly
+accentuated.
+
+The gladness of this return, the sudden, overwhelming realization of a
+longing that had been agonizing in its intensity, excited the boy
+beyond bounds.  He gave an indubitable whoop of joy, which so startled
+and amazed the woman that she stared open-mouthed; tossed his cap in
+the air, flung his overcoat and gloves on the floor, peeped through the
+black window-panes, pried into the cupboard, hugged his mother so
+rapturously, so embarrassingly, that he tumbled her over and was
+himself involved in the hilarious collapse: whereupon, as a measure of
+protection while she laid the table, she despatched him across the hall
+to greet Mr. Poddle, who was ill abed, anxiously awaiting him.
+
+The Dog-faced Man was all prinked for the occasion--his hirsute
+adornment neatly brushed and braided, smoothly parted from crown over
+brow and nose to chin: so that, though, to be sure, his appearance
+instantly suggested a porcupine, his sensitive lips and mild gray eyes
+were for once allowed to impress the beholder.  The air of Hockley's
+Musee had at last laid him by the heels.  No longer, by any license of
+metaphor, could his lungs be said to be merely restless.  He was flat
+on his back--white, wan, gasping: sweat dampening the hair on his brow.
+But he bravely chirked up when the child entered, subdued and pitiful;
+and though, in response to a glance of pain and concern, his eyes
+overran with the weak tears of the sick, he smiled like a man to whom
+Nature had not been cruel, while he pressed the small hand so swiftly
+extended.
+
+"I'm sick, Richard," he whispered.  "'Death No Respecter of Persons.'
+Git me?  'High and Low Took By the Grim Reaper.'  I'm awful sick."
+
+The boy, now seated on the bed, still holding the ghastly hand, hoped
+that Mr. Poddle would soon be well.
+
+"No," said the Dog-faced Man.  "I won't.  'Climax of a Notable Career.'
+Git me?  It wouldn't--be proper."
+
+Not proper?
+
+"No, Richard.  It really wouldn't be proper.  'Dignified in Death.'
+Understand?  Distinguished men has their limits.  'Outlived His Fame.'
+I really couldn't stand it.  Git me?"
+
+"Not--quite."
+
+"Guess I'll have to tell you.  Look!"  The Dog-faced Man held up his
+hand--but swiftly replaced it between the child's warm, sympathetic
+palms.  "No rings.  Understand?  'Pawned the Family Jewells.'  Git me?
+'Reduced to Poverty.'  Where's my frock coat?  Where's my silk hat?
+'Wardrobe of a Celebrity Sold For A Song.'  Where's them two pair of
+trousers?  'A Tragic Disappearance.'  All up the spout.  Everything
+gone.  'Not a Stitch to His Name.'  Really, Richard, it wouldn't be
+proper to get well.  A natural phenomenon of my standing
+couldn't--simply _couldn't_, Richard--go back to the profession with a
+wardrobe consistin' of two pink night-shirts, both the worse for wear.
+It wouldn't _do_!  On the Stage In Scant Attire.'  I couldn't stand it.
+'Fell From His High Estate.'  It would break my heart."
+
+No word of comfort occurred to the boy.
+
+"So," sighed the Dog-faced Man,  "I guess I better die.  And the
+quicker the better."
+
+To change the distressful drift of the conversation, the boy inquired
+concerning the Mexican Sword Swallower.
+
+"Hush!" implored Mr. Poddle, in a way so poignant that the boy wished
+he had been more discreet.  "Them massive proportions!  Them socks!
+'Her Fate a Tattooed Man,'" he pursued, in gentle melancholy.  "Don't
+ask me!  'Nearing the Fateful Hour.'  Poor child!'  Wedded To A
+Artificial Freak.'"
+
+"Is she married?"
+
+"No--not yet," Mr. Poddle explained.  "But when the dragon's tail is
+finished, accordin' to undenigeable report, the deed will be did.
+'Shackled For Life.'  Oh, my God!  He's borrowed the money to pay the
+last installment; and I'm informed that only the scales has to be
+picked out with red.  But why should I mourn?" he asked.  "'Adored From
+Afar.'  Understand?  That's what I got to do.  'His Love a Tragedy.'
+Oh, Richard," Mr. Poddle concluded, in genuine distress, "that's me!
+It couldn't be nothing else.  Natural phenomens is natural phenomens.
+'Paid the Penalty of Genius.'  That's me!"
+
+The boy's mother called to him.
+
+"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, abruptly, "I'm awful sick.  I can't last
+much longer.  Git me?  I'm dyin'.  And I'm poor.  I ain't got a cent.
+I'm forgot by the public.  I'm all alone in the world.  Nobody owes me
+no kindness."  He clutched the boy's hand.  "Know who pays my rent?
+Know who feeds me?  Know who brings the doctor when I vomit blood?
+Know who sits with me in the night--when I can't sleep?  Know who
+watches over me?  Who comforts me?  Who holds my hand when I git afraid
+to die?  Know who that is, Richard?"
+
+"Yes," the boy whispered.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"My mother!"
+
+"Yes--your mother," said the Dog-faced Man.  He lifted himself on the
+pillow.  "Richard," he  continued, "listen to me!  I'll be dead, soon,
+and then I can't talk to you no more.  I can't say no word to you from
+the grave--when the time she dreads has come.  Listen to me!"  His
+voice rose.  He was breathing in gasps.  There was a light in his eyes.
+"It is your mother.  There ain't a better woman in all the world.
+Listen to me! Don't you forget her.  She loves you.  You're all she's
+got.  Her poor heart is hungry for you.  Don't you forget her.  There
+ain't a better woman nowhere.  There ain't a woman more fit for heaven.
+Don't you go back on her!  Don't you let no black-and-white curick
+teach you no different!"
+
+"I'll not forget!" said the boy.
+
+Mr. Poddle laid a hand on his head.  "God bless you, Richard!" said he.
+
+The boy kissed him, unafraid of his monstrous countenance--and then
+fled to his mother....
+
+
+For a long time the Dog-faced Man lay alone, listening to the voices
+across the hall: himself smiling to know that the woman had her son
+again; not selfishly reluctant to be thus abandoned.  The door was
+ajar.  Joyous sounds drifted in--chatter, soft laughter, the rattle of
+dishes....  Presently, silence: broken by the creaking of the
+rocking-chair, and by low singing....  By and by, voices, speaking
+gravely--in intimate converse: this for a long, long time, while the
+muttering of the tenement ceased, and quiet fell....  A plea and an
+imploring protest.  She was wanting him to go to bed.  There followed
+the familiar indications that the child was being disrobed: shoes
+striking the floor, yawns, sleepy talk, crooning encouragement....
+Then a strange silence--puzzling to the listener: not accountable by
+his recollection of similar occasions.
+
+There was a quick step in the hall.
+
+"Poddle!"
+
+The Dog-faced Man started.  There was alarm in the voice--despair,
+resentment.  On the threshold stood the woman--distraught: one hand
+against the door-post, the other on her heart.
+
+"Poddle, he's----"
+
+Mr. Poddle, thrown into a paroxysm of fright by the pause, struggled to
+his elbow, but fell back, gasping.
+
+"What's he doin'?" he managed to whisper.
+
+"Prayin'!" she answered, hoarsely.
+
+Mr. Poddle was utterly nonplussed.  The situation was unprecedented:
+not to be dealt with on the basis of past experience.
+
+"'Religion In Haste,'" he sighed, sadly confounded.  "'Repent At
+Leisure.'"
+
+"Prayin'!" she repeated, entering on tiptoe.  "He's down on his
+knees--_prayin'_!"  She began to pace the floor--wringing her hands: a
+tragic figure.  "It's come, Poddle!" she whimpered, beginning now to
+bite at her fingernails.  "He's changed.  He never seen me pray.  _I_
+never told him how.  Oh, he's--different.  And he'll change more.  I
+got to face it.  He'll soon be like the people that--that--don't
+understand us.  I couldn't stand it to see that stare in his eyes.
+It'll kill me, Poddle!  I knew it would come," she continued,
+uninterrupted, Mr. Poddle being unable to come to her assistance for
+lack of breath.  "But I didn't think it would be so--awful soon.  And I
+didn't know how much it would hurt.  I didn't _think_ about it.  I
+didn't dare.  Oh, my baby!" she sobbed.  "You'll not love your mother
+any more--when you find her out.  You'll be just like--all them
+people!"  She came to a full stop.  "Poddle," she declared, trembling,
+her voice rising harshly, "I got to do something.  I got to do
+it--_quick_!  What shall I do?  Oh, what shall I do?"
+
+Mr. Poddle drew a long breath.  "Likewise!" he gasped.
+
+She did not understand.
+
+"Likewise!" Mr. Poddle repeated.  "'Fought the Devil With Fire.'
+Quick!"  He weakly beckoned her to be off.  "Don't--let him
+know--you're different.  Go and--pray yourself.  Don't--let on
+you--never done it--before."
+
+She gave him a glad glance of comprehension--and disappeared...
+
+
+The boy had risen.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, brightly.  "You got through, didn't you, dear?"
+
+He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling--still
+reluctant to crawl within.  And he was very gravely regarding her, a
+cloud of anxious wonder in his eyes.
+
+"Who taught you to," she hesitated, "do it--that way?" she pursued,
+making believe to be but lightly interested.  "The curate?  Oh, my!"
+she exclaimed, immediately changing the thought.  "Your mother's awful
+sleepy."  She counterfeited a yawn.  "I never kneel to--do it," she
+continued.  In a sharp glance she saw the wonder clearing from his
+eyes, the beginnings of a smile appear about his lips; and she was
+emboldened to proceed.  "Some kneels," she said, "and some doesn't.
+The curate, I suppose, kneels.  That's his way.  Now, _I_ don't.  I was
+brought up--the other way.  I wait till I get in bed to--say mine.
+When you was a baby," she rattled, "I used to--keep it up--for hours at
+a time.  I just _love_ to--do it.  In bed, you know.  I guess you never
+seen me kneel, did you?  But I think I will, after this, because
+you--do it--that way."
+
+His serenity was quite restored.  Glad to learn that his mother knew
+the solace of prayer, he rolled back on the pillows.  She tucked him in.
+
+"Now, watch me," she said.
+
+"And I," said he, "will pray all over again.  In bed," he added;
+"because that's the way _you_ do it."
+
+She knelt.  "In God's name!" she thought, as she inclined her bead,
+"what can I do?  I've lost him.  Oh, I've lost him....  What'll I do
+when he finds out?  He'll not love me then.  Love me!" she thought,
+bitterly.  "He'll look at me like them people in the church.  I can't
+stand it!  I got to _do_ something....  It won't be long.  They'll tell
+him--some one.  And I can't do nothing to help it!  But I _got_ to do
+something....  My God!  I got to do something.  I'll dress better than
+this.  This foulard's a botch."  New fashions in dress, in coiffures,
+multiplied in her mind.  She was groping, according to her poor
+enlightenment.  "The pompadour!" she mused, inspired, according to the
+inspiration of her kind.  "It might suit my style.  I'll try it....
+But, oh, it won't do no good," she thought, despairing.  "_It_ won't do
+no good....  I've lost him!  Good God!  I've lost my own child...."
+
+She rose.
+
+"It took you an awful long time," said the boy.
+
+"Yes," she answered, absently.  "I'm the real thing.  When I pray, I
+pray good and hard."
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Alienation_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Child's Prayer_]
+
+
+
+
+_A CHILD'S PRAYER_
+
+The boy's room was furnished in the manner of the curate's
+chamber--which, indeed, was severe and chaste enough: for the curate
+practiced certain monkish austerities not common to the clergy of this
+day.  It was a white, bare little room, at the top of the house,
+overlooking the street: a still place, into which, at bedtime, no
+distraction entered to break the nervous introspection, the high,
+wistful dreaming, sadly habitual to the child when left alone in the
+dark.  But always, of fine mornings, the sun came joyously to waken
+him; and often, in the night, when he lay wakeful, the moon peeped in
+upon the exquisite simplicity, and, discovering a lonely child,
+companionably lingered to hearten him.  The beam fell over the
+window-sill, crawled across the floor, climbed the bare wall.
+
+There was a great white crucifix on the wall, hanging in the broad path
+of the moonlight.  It stared at the boy's pillow, tenderly appealing:
+the head thorn-crowned, the body drawn tense, the face uplifted in
+patient agony.  Sometimes it made the boy cry.
+
+"They who sin," he would repeat, "crucify the dear Lord again!"
+
+It would be very hard, then, to fall asleep....
+
+So did the crucifix on the wall work within the child's heart--so did
+the shadows of the wide, still house impress him, so did the curate's
+voice and gentle teaching, so did the gloom, the stained windows, the
+lofty arches, the lights and low, sweet music of the Church of the
+Lifted Cross favour the subtle change--that he was now moved to pain
+and sickening disgust by rags and pinched faces and discord and dirt
+and feverish haste and all manner of harshness and unloveliness,
+conceiving them poignant as sin....
+
+
+Mother and son were in the park.  It was evening--dusk: a grateful balm
+abroad in the air.  Men and women, returning from church, idled through
+the spring night.
+
+"But, dear," said his mother, while she patted his hand, "you mustn't
+_hate_ the wicked!"
+
+He looked up in wonder.
+
+"Oh, my! no," she pursued.  "Poor things!  They're not so bad--when you
+know them.  Some is real kind."
+
+"I could not _love_ them!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I _could_ not!"
+
+So positive, this--the suggestion so scouted--that she took thought for
+her own fate.
+
+"Would you love me?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, mother!" he laughed.
+
+"What would you do," she gravely continued, "if I was--a wicked woman?"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"What would you do," she insisted, "if somebody told you I was bad?"
+
+"Mother," he answered, not yet affected by her earnestness, "you could
+not be!"
+
+She put her hands on his shoulders.  "What would you do?" she repeated.
+
+"Don't!" he pleaded, disquieted.
+
+Again the question--low, intense, demanding answer.  He trembled.  She
+was not in play.  A sinful woman?  For a moment he conceived the
+possibility--vaguely: in a mere flash of feeling.
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I think," he whispered, "that I'd--die!"
+
+
+That night, when the moonlight had climbed to the crucifix on the wall,
+the boy got out of bed.  For a long time he stood in the beam of soft
+light--staring at the tortured Figure.
+
+"I think I'd better do it!" he determined.
+
+He knelt--lifted his clasped hands--began his childish appeal.
+
+"Dear Jesus," he prayed, "my mother says that I must not hate the
+wicked.  You heard her, didn't you, dear Jesus?  It was in the park,
+to-night, after church--at the bench near the lilac bush.  You _must_
+have heard her....  Mother says the wicked are kind, and not so bad.  I
+would like very much to love them.  She says they're nice--when you
+know them.  I know she's right, of course.  But it seems queer.  And
+she says I _ought_ to love them.  So I want to do it, if you don't
+mind....  Maybe, if you would let me be a little wicked for a little
+while, I could do it.  Don't you think, Jesus, dear, that it is a good
+idea?  A little wicked--for just a little while.  I wouldn't care very
+much, if you didn't mind.  But if it hurts you very much, I don't want
+to, if you please....  But I would like to be a little wicked.  If I
+do, please don't forget me.  I would not like to be wicked long.  Just
+a little while.  Then I would be good again--and love the wicked, as my
+mother wants me to do.  Good-bye.  I mean--Amen!"
+
+The child knew nothing about sin.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _A Child's Prayer_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Mr. Poddle's Finale_]
+
+
+
+
+_MR. PODDLE'S FINALE_
+
+Of a yellow, balmy morning, with a languid breeze stirring the curtains
+in the open windows of the street, a hansom cab, drawn by a lean gray
+beast, appeared near the curate's door.  What with his wild career, the
+nature of his errand, the extraordinary character of his fare, the
+driver was all elbows and eyes--a perspiring, gesticulating figure,
+swaying widely on the high perch.
+
+Within was a lady so monstrously stout that she completely filled the
+vehicle.  Rolls of fat were tucked into every nook, jammed into every
+corner, calked into every crevice; and, at last, demanding place, they
+scandalously overflowed the apron.  So tight was the fit--so crushed
+and confined the lady's immensity--that, being quite unable to
+articulate or stir, but desiring most heartily to do both, she could do
+little but wheeze, and faintly wave a gigantic hand.
+
+Proceeding thus--while the passenger gasped, and the driver
+gesticulated, and the hansom creaked and tottered, and the outraged
+horse bent to the fearful labour--the equipage presently arrived at the
+curate's door, and was there drawn up with a jerk.
+
+The Fat Lady was released, assisted to alight, helped across the
+pavement; and having waddled up three steps of the flight, and being
+unable without a respite to lift her massive foot for the fourth time,
+she loudly demanded of the impassive door the instant appearance of
+Dickie Slade: whereupon, the door flew open, and the boy bounded out.
+
+"Madame Lacara!" he cried.
+
+"Quick, child!" the Fat Lady wheezed.  "Git your hat.  Your mother
+can't stay no longer--and I can't get up the stairs--and Poddle's
+dyin'--and _git your hat_!"
+
+In a moment the boy returned.  The Fat Lady was standing beside the
+cab--the exhausted horse contemplating her with no friendly eye.
+
+"Git in!" said she.
+
+"Don't you do it," the driver warned.
+
+"Git in!" the Fat Lady repeated.
+
+"Not if he knows what's good for him," said the driver.  "Not first."
+
+The boy hesitated.
+
+"Git in, child!" screamed the Fat Lady.
+
+"Don't you do it," said the driver.
+
+"Child," the Fat Lady gasped, exasperated, "git in!"
+
+"Not first," the driver repeated.  "There ain't room for both; and once
+she lets her weight down----"
+
+"Maybe," the Fat Lady admitted, after giving the matter most careful
+consideration, "it would be better for you to set on me."
+
+"Maybe," the boy agreed, much relieved, "it would."
+
+So Madame Lacara entered, and took the boy in her arms; and off, at
+last, they went towards the Box Street tenement, swaying, creaking,
+wheezing, with a troop of joyous urchins in the wake....
+
+It was early afternoon--with the sunlight lying thick and warm on the
+window-ledge of Mr. Poddle's room, about to enter, to distribute cheer,
+to speak its unfailing promises.  The sash was lifted high; a gentle
+wind, clean and blue, blowing from the sea, over the roofs and the
+river, came sportively in, with a joyous little rush and swirl--but of
+a sudden failed: hushed, as though by unexpected encounter with the
+solemnity within.
+
+The boy's mother was gone.  It was of a Saturday; she had not dared to
+linger.  When the boy entered, Mr. Poddle lay alone, lifted on the
+pillows, staring deep into the wide, shining sky: composed and
+dreamful.  The distress of his deformity, as the pains of dissolution,
+had been mitigated by the woman's kind and knowing hand: the tawny
+hair, by nature rank and shaggy, by habit unkempt, now damp with sweat,
+was everywhere laid smooth upon his face--brushed away from the eyes:
+no longer permitted to obscure the fast failing sight.
+
+Beside him, close--drawing closer--the boy seated himself.  Very low
+and broken--husky, halting--was the Dog-faced Man's voice.  The boy
+must often bend his ear to understand.
+
+"The hirsute," Mr. Poddle whispered, "adornment.  All ready for the
+last appearance.  'Natural Phenomonen Meets the Common Fate.'
+Celebrities," he added, with a little smile, "is just clay."
+
+The boy took his hand.
+
+"She done it," Mr. Poddle explained, faintly indicating the unusual
+condition of his deforming hair, "with a little brush."
+
+"She?" the boy asked, with significant emphasis.
+
+"No," Mr. Poddle sighed.  "Hush!  Not She--just her."
+
+By this the boy knew that the Mexican Sword Swallower had not
+relented--but that his mother had been kind.
+
+"She left that there little brush somewheres," Mr. Poddle continued,
+with an effort to lift his head, but failing to do more than roll his
+glazed eyes.  "There was a little handkerchief with it.  Can't you find
+'em, Richard?  I wish you could.  They make me--more comfortable.  Oh,
+I'm glad you got 'em!  I feel easier--this way.  She said you'd stay
+with me--to the last.  She said, Richard, that maybe you'd keep the
+hair away from my eyes, and the sweat from rollin' in.  For I'm easier
+that way; and I want to _see_," he moaned, "to the last!"
+
+The boy pressed his hand.
+
+"I'm tired of the hair," Mr. Poddle sighed.  "I used to be proud of it;
+but I'm tired of it--now.  It's been admired, Richard; it's been
+applauded.  Locks of it has been requested by the Fair; and the Strong
+has wished they was me.  But, Richard, celebrities sits on a lonely
+eminence.  And I _been_ lonely, God knows! though I kept a smilin'
+face....  I'm tired of the hair--tired of fame.  It all looks
+different--when you git sight of the Common Leveller.  'Tired of His
+Talent.'  Since I been lyin' here, Richard, sick and alone, I been
+thinkin' that talent wasn't nothin' much after all.  I been wishin',
+Richard--wishin'!"
+
+The Dog-faced Man paused for breath.
+
+"I been wishin'," he gasped, "that I wasn't a phenomonen--but only a
+man!"
+
+
+The sunlight began to creep towards Mr. Poddle's bed--a broad, yellow
+beam, stretching into the blue spaces without: lying like a golden
+pathway before him.
+
+"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, "I'm goin' to die."
+
+The boy began to cry.
+
+"Don't cry!" Mr. Poddle pleaded.  "I ain't afraid.  Hear me, Richard?
+I ain't afraid."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"I'm glad to die.  'Death the Dog-faced Man's Best Friend.'  I'm glad!
+Lyin' here, I seen the truth.  It's only when a man looks back that he
+finds out what he's missed--only when he looks back, from the end of
+the path, that he sees the flowers he might have plucked by the way....
+Lyin' here, I been lookin' back--far back.  And my eyes is opened.  Now
+I see--now I know!  I have been travellin' a road where the flowers
+grows thick.  But God made me so I couldn't pick 'em.  It's love,
+Richard, that men wants.  Just love!  It's love their hearts is thirsty
+for....  And there wasn't no love--for me.  I been awful thirsty,
+Richard; but there wasn't no water anywhere in all the world--for me.
+'Spoiled In the Making.'  That's me.  'God's Bad Break.'  Oh, that's
+me!  I'm not a natural phenomonen no more.  I'm only a freak of nature.
+I ain't got no kick comin'.  I stand by what God done.  Maybe it wasn't
+no mistake; maybe He wanted to show all the people in the world what
+would happen if He was in the habit of gittin' careless.  Anyhow, I
+guess He's man enough to stand by the job He done.  He made me what I
+am--a freak.  I ain't to blame.  But, oh, my God!  Richard, it
+hurts--to be that!"
+
+The boy brushed the tears from the Dog-faced Man's eyes.
+
+"No," Mr. Poddle repeated.  "I ain't afraid to die.  For I been
+thinkin'--since I been lyin' here, sick and alone--I been thinkin' that
+us mistakes has a good deal----"
+
+The boy bent close.
+
+"Comin' to us!"
+
+The sunlight was climbing the bed-post.
+
+"I been lookin' back," Mr. Poddle repeated.  "Things don't look the
+same.  You gits a bird's-eye view of life--from your deathbed.  And it
+looks--somehow--different."
+
+There was a little space of silence--while the Dog-faced Man drew long
+breaths: while his wasted hand wandered restlessly over the coverlet.
+
+"You got the little brush, Richard?" he asked, his voice changing to a
+tired sigh.  "The adornment has got in the way again."
+
+The boy brushed back the fallen hair--wiped away the sweat.
+
+"Your mother," said Mr. Poddle, faintly smiling, "does it better.
+She's used--to doing it.  You ain't--done it--quite right--have you?
+You ain't got--all them hairs--out of the way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not all," Mr. Poddle gently persisted; "because I can't--see--very
+well."
+
+While the boy humoured the fancy, Mr. Poddle lay musing--his hand still
+straying over the coverlet: still feverishly searching.
+
+"I used to think, Richard," he whispered, "that it ought to be done--in
+public."  He paused--a flash of alarm in his eyes.  "Do you hear me,
+Richard?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+Mr. Poddle frowned--puzzled, it may be, by the distant sound, the
+muffled, failing rumble, of his own voice.
+
+"I used to think," he repeated, dismissing the problem, as beyond him,
+"that I'd like to do it--in public."
+
+The boy waited.
+
+"Die," Mr. Poddle explained.
+
+A man went whistling gaily past the door.  The merry air, the buoyant
+step, were strangely not discordant; nor was the sunshine, falling over
+the foot of the bed.
+
+"'Last Appearance of a Famous Freak!'" Mr. Poddle elucidated, his eyes
+shining with delight--returning, all at once, to his old manner.  "Git
+me, Richard?" he continued, excitedly.  "'Fitting Finale!  Close of a
+Curious Career!  Mr. Henry Poddle, the eminent natural phenomonen, has
+consented to depart this life on the stage of Hockley's Musee, on
+Sunday next, in the presence of three physicians, a trained nurse, a
+minister of the gospel and a undertaker.  Unparalleled Entertainment!
+The management has been at unprecedented expense to git this unique
+feature.  Death Defied!  A Extraordinary Educational Exhibition!  Note:
+Mr. Poddle will do his best to oblige his admirers and the patrons of
+the house by dissolving the mortal tie about the hour of ten o'clock;
+but the management cannot guarantee that the exhibition will conclude
+before midnight.'"  Mr. Poddle made a wry face--with yet a glint of
+humour about it.  "'Positively,'" said he, "'the last appearance of
+this eminent freak.  No return engagement.'"
+
+Again the buoyant step in the hall, the gaily whistled air--departing:
+leaving an expectant silence.
+
+"Do it," Mr. Poddle gasped, worn out, "in public.  But since I been
+lyin' here," he added, "lookin' back, I seen the error.  The public,
+Richard, has no feelin'.  They'd laugh--if I groaned.  I don't like the
+public--no more.  I don't want to die--in public.  I want," he
+concluded, his voice falling to a thin, exhausted whisper, "only your
+mother--and you, Richard--and----"
+
+"Did you say--Her?"
+
+"The Lovely One!"
+
+"I'll bring her!" said the boy, impulsively.
+
+"No, no!  She wouldn't come.  I been--in  communication--recent.  And
+she writ back.  Oh, Richard, she writ back!  My heart's broke!"
+
+The boy brushed the handkerchief over the Dog-faced Man's eyes.
+
+"'Are you muzzled,' says she, 'in dog days?'"
+
+"Don't mind her!" cried the boy.
+
+"In the eyes of the law, Richard," Mr. Poddle exclaimed, his eyes
+flashing, "I ain't no dog!"
+
+The boy kissed his forehead--there was no other comfort to offer: and
+the caress was sufficient.
+
+"I wish," Mr. Poddle sighed, "that I knew how God will look at
+it--to-night!"
+
+
+Mr. Poddle, exhausted by speech and emotion, closed his eyes.  By and
+by the boy stealthily withdrew his hand from the weakening clasp.  Mr.
+Poddle gave no sign of knowing it.  The boy slipped away....  And
+descending to the third floor of the tenement, he came to the room
+where lived the Mexican Sword Swallower: whom he persuaded to return
+with him to Mr. Poddle's bedside.
+
+They paused at the door.  The woman drew back.
+
+"Aw, Dick," she simpered, "I hate to!"
+
+"Just this once!" the boy pleaded.
+
+"Just to say it!"
+
+The reply was a bashful giggle.
+
+"You don't have to _mean_ it," the boy argued.  "Just _say_ it--that's
+all!"
+
+They entered.  Mr. Poddle was muttering the boy's name--in a vain
+effort to lift his voice.  His hands were both at the
+coverlet--picking, searching: both restless in the advancing sunshine.
+With a sob of self-reproach the boy ran quickly to the bedside, took
+one of the wandering hands, pressed it to his lips.  And Mr. Poddle
+sighed, and lay quiet again.
+
+"Mr. Poddle," the boy whispered, "she's come at last."
+
+There was no response.
+
+"She's come!" the boy repeated.  He gave the hand he held to the woman.
+Then he put his lips close to the dying man's ear.  "Don't you hear me?
+She's come!"
+
+Mr. Poddle opened his eyes.  "Her--massive--proportions!" he faltered.
+
+"Quick!" said the boy.
+
+"Poddle," the woman lied, "I love you!"
+
+Then came the Dog-faced Man's one brief flash of ecstasy--expressed in
+a wondrous glance of joy and devotion: but a swiftly fading fire.
+
+"She loves me!" he muttered.
+
+"I do, Poddle!" the woman sobbed, willing, now, for the grotesque
+deception.  "Yes, I do!"
+
+"'Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle gasped, "'and the Beast!'"
+
+They listened intently.  He said no more....  Soon the sunbeam
+glorified the smiling face....
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Mr. Poddle's Finale_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _His Mother_]
+
+
+
+
+_HIS MOTHER_
+
+While he waited for his mother to come--seeking relief from the
+melancholy and deep mystification of this death--the boy went into the
+street.  The day was well disposed, the crowded world in an amiable
+mood; he perceived no menace--felt no warning of catastrophe.  He
+wandered far, unobservant, forgetful: the real world out of mind.  And
+it chanced that he lost his way; and he came, at last, to that loud,
+seething place, thronged with unquiet faces, where, even in the
+sunshine, sin and poverty walked abroad, unashamed....  Rush, crash,
+joyless laughter, swollen flesh, red eyes, shouting, rags, disease:
+flung into the midst of it--transported from the sweet feeling and
+quiet gloom of the Church of the Lifted Gross--he was confused and
+frightened....
+
+
+A hand fell heartily on the boy's shoulder.  "Hello, there!" cried a
+big voice.  "Ain't you Millie Blade's kid?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the boy gasped.
+
+It was a big man--a broad-shouldered, lusty fellow, muscular and lithe:
+good-humoured and dull of face, winning of voice and manner.
+Countenance and voice were vaguely familiar to the boy.  He felt no
+alarm.
+
+"What the devil you doing here?" the man demanded.  "Looking for
+Millie?"
+
+"Oh, no!" the boy answered, horrified.  "My mother isn't--_here_!"
+
+"Well, what you doing?"
+
+"I'm lost."
+
+The man laughed.  He clapped the boy on the back.  "Don't you be
+afraid," said he, sincerely hearty.  "I'll take you home.  You know me,
+don't you?"
+
+"Not your name."
+
+"Anyhow, you remember me, don't you?  You've seen me before?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, my name's Jim Millette.  I'm an acrobat.  And I know you.  Why,
+sure!  I remember when you was born.  Me and your mother is old
+friends.  Soon as I seen you I knew who you was.  'By gad!' says I, 'if
+that ain't Millie Slade's kid!'  How is she, anyhow?"
+
+"She's very well."
+
+"Working?"
+
+"No," the boy answered, gravely; "my mother does not work."
+
+The man whistled.
+
+"I am living with Mr. Fithian, the curate," said the boy, with a sigh.
+"So my mother is having--a very good--time."
+
+"She must be lonely."
+
+The boy shook his head.  "Oh, no!" said he.  "She is much
+happier--without me."
+
+"She's _what_?"
+
+"Happier," the boy repeated, "without me.  If she were not," he added,
+"I would not live with the curate."
+
+The man laughed.  It was in pity--not in merriment.  "Well, say," he
+said, "when you see your mother, you tell her you met Jim Millette on
+the street.  Will you?  You tell her Jim's been--married.  She'll
+understand.  And I guess she'll be glad to know it.  And, say, I guess
+she'll wonder who it's to.  You tell her it's the little blonde of the
+Flying Tounsons.  She'll know I ain't losing anything, anyhow, by
+standing in with that troupe.  Tell her it's all right.  You just tell
+her I said that everything was all right.  Will you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You ain't never been to a show, have you?" the man continued.  "I
+thought not.  Well, say, you come along with me.  It ain't late.  We'll
+see the after-piece at the Burlesque.  I'll take you in."
+
+"I think," said the boy, "I had better not."
+
+"Aw, come on!" the acrobat urged.
+
+"I'm awful glad to see you, Dick," he added, putting his arm around the
+boy, of kind impulse; "and I'd like to give you a good time--for
+Millie's sake."
+
+The boy was still doubtful.  "I had better go home," he said.
+
+"Oh, now, don't you be afraid of me, Dick.  I'll take you home after
+the show.  We got lots of time.  Aw, come on!"
+
+It occurred to the boy that Providence had ordered events in answer to
+his prayer.
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+"You'll have a good time," the acrobat promised.  "They say Flannigan's
+got a good show."
+
+They made their way to the Burlesque.  Flannigan's Forty Flirts there
+held the boards.  "Girls!  Just Girls!  Grass Widows and Merry Maids!
+No Nonsense About 'Em!  Just Girls!  Girls!"  The foul and tawdry
+aspect of the entrance oppressed the child.  He felt some tragic
+foreboding....
+
+
+Within it was dark to the boy's eyes.  The air was hot and
+foul--stagnant, exhausted: the stale exhalation of a multitude of lungs
+which vice was rotting; tasting of their very putridity.  A mist of
+tobacco smoke filled the place--was still rising in bitter, stifling
+clouds.  There was a nauseating smell of beer and sweat and
+disinfectants.  The boy's foot felt the unspeakable slime of the floor:
+he tingled with disgust.
+
+An illustrated song was in listless progress.  The light, reflected
+from the screen, revealed a throng of repulsive faces, stretching, row
+upon row, into the darkness of the rear, into the shadows of the
+roof--sickly and pimpled and bloated flesh: vicious faces, hopeless,
+vacuous, diseased.  And these were the faces that leered and writhed in
+the boy's dreams of hell.  Here, present and tangible, were gathered
+all his terrors.  He was in the very midst of sin.
+
+The song was ended.  The footlights flashed high.  There was a burst of
+blatant music--a blare: unfeeling and discordant.  It grated
+agonizingly.  The boy's sensitive ear rebelled.  He shuddered....
+Screen and curtain disappeared.  In the brilliant light beyond, a group
+of brazen women began to cavort and sing.  Their voices were harsh and
+out of tune.  At once the faces in the shadow started into eager
+interest--the eyes flashing, with some strangely evil passion, unknown
+to the child, but acutely felt....  There was a shrill shout of
+welcome--raised by the women, without feeling.  Down the stage, her
+person exposed, bare-armed, throwing shameless glances, courting the
+sensual stare, grinning as though in joyous sympathy with the evil of
+the place, came a woman with blinding blonde hair.
+
+It was the boy's mother.
+
+
+"Millie!" the acrobat ejaculated.
+
+The boy had not moved.  He was staring at the woman on the stage.  A
+flush of shame, swiftly departing, had left his face white.  Presently
+he trembled.  His lips twitched--his head drooped.  The man laid a
+comforting hand on his knee.  A tear splashed upon it.
+
+"I didn't know she was here, Dick!" the acrobat whispered.  "It's a
+shame.  But I didn't know.  And I--I'm--sorry!"
+
+The boy looked up.  He called a smile to his face.  It was a brave
+pretense.  But his face was still wan.
+
+"I think I'd like to go home," he answered, weakly.  "It's--time--for
+tea."
+
+"Don't feel bad, Dick! It's all right.  _She's_ all right."
+
+"If you please," said the boy, still resolutely pretending ignorance,
+"I think I'd like to go--now."
+
+The acrobat waited for a blast of harsh music to subside.  The boy's
+mother began to sing--a voice trivially engaged: raised beyond its
+strength.  A spasm of distress contorted the boy's face.
+
+"Brace up, Dick!" the man whispered.  "Don't take it so hard."
+
+"If you please," the boy protested, "I'll be late for tea if I don't go
+now."
+
+The acrobat took his hand--guided him, stumbling, up the aisle: led him
+into the fresh air, the cool, clean sunlight, of the street....  There
+had been sudden confusion on the stage.  The curtain had fallen with a
+rush.  But it was now lifted, again, and the dismal entertainment was
+once more in noisy course.
+
+
+It was now late in the afternoon.  The pavement was thronged.  Dazed by
+agony, blinded by the bright light of day, the boy was roughly jostled.
+The acrobat drew him into an eddy of the stream.  There the child
+offered his hand--and looked up with a dogged little smile.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.  "Thank you."
+
+The acrobat caught the hand in a warm clasp.  "You don't know your way
+home, do you?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Where you going?"
+
+The boy looked away.  There was a long interval.  Into the shuffle and
+chatter of the passing crowd crept the muffled blare of the orchestra.
+The acrobat still held the boy's hand tight--still anxiously watched
+him, his face overcast.
+
+"Box Street?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Aw, Dick! think again," the acrobat pleaded.  "Come, now!  Ain't you
+going to Box Street?"
+
+"No, sir," the boy answered, low.  "I'm going to the curate's house,
+near the Church of the Lifted Cross."
+
+They were soon within sight of the trees in the park.  The boy's way
+was then known to him.  Again he extended his hand--again smiled.
+
+"Thank you," he said.  "Good-bye."
+
+The acrobat was loath to let the little hand go.  But there was nothing
+else to do.  He dropped it, at last, with a quick-drawn sigh.
+
+"It'll come out all right," he muttered.
+
+Then the boy went his way alone.  His shoulders were proudly
+squared--his head held high....
+
+
+Meantime, they had revived Millie Slade.  She was in the common
+dressing-room--a littered, infamous, foul, place, situated below stage.
+Behind her the gas flared and screamed.  Still in her panderous
+disguise, within hearing of the rasping music and the tramp of the
+dance, within hearing of the coarse applause, this tender mother sat
+alone, unconscious of evil--uncontaminated, herself kept holy by her
+motherhood, lifted by her love from the touch of sin.  To her all the
+world was a temple, undefiled, wherein she worshipped, wherein the
+child was a Presence, purifying every place.
+
+She had no strength left for tragic behaviour.  She sat limp, shedding
+weak tears, whimpering, tearing at her finger nails.
+
+"I'm found out!" she moaned.  "Oh, my God!  He'll never love me no
+more!"
+
+A woman entered in haste.
+
+"You got it, Aggie?" the mother asked.
+
+"Yes, dear.  Now, you just drink this, and you'll feel better."
+
+"I don't want it--now."
+
+"Aw, now, you drink it!  Poor dear! It'll do you lots of good."
+
+"He wouldn't want me to."
+
+"Aw, he won't know.  And you need it, dear.  _Do_ drink it!"
+
+"No, Aggie," said the mother.  "It don't matter that he don't know.  I
+just don't want it.  I _can't_ do what he wouldn't like me to."
+
+The glass was put aside.  And Aggie sat beside the mother, and drew her
+head to a sympathetic breast.
+
+"Don't cry!" she whispered.  "Oh, Millie, don't cry!"
+
+"Oh," the woman whimpered, "he'll think me an ugly thing, Aggie.  He'll
+think me a skinny thing.  If I'd only got here in time, if I'd only
+looked right, he might have loved me still.  But he won't love me no
+more--after to-day!"
+
+"Hush, Millie!  He's only a kid.  He don't know nothing about--such
+things."
+
+"Only a kid," said the mother, according to the perverted experience of
+her life, "but still a man!"
+
+"He wouldn't care."
+
+"They _all_ care!"
+
+Indeed, this was her view; and by her knowledge of the world she spoke.
+
+"Not him," said Aggie.
+
+The mother was infinitely distressed.  "Oh," she moaned, "if I'd only
+had time to pad!"
+
+This was the greater tragedy of her situation: that she misunderstood.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Mother_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Nearing the Sea_]
+
+
+
+
+_NEARING THE SEA_
+
+It was Sunday evening.  Evil-weather threatened.  The broad window of
+top floor rear looked out upon a lowering sky--everywhere gray and
+thick: turning black beyond the distant hills.  An hour ago the
+Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with
+the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular
+comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last
+distraction had departed.  The boy's mother was left undisturbed to
+prepare for the crucial moments in the park.
+
+She was now nervously engaged before her looking-glass.  All the tools
+of her trade lay at hand.  A momentous problem confronted her.  The
+child must be won back.  He must be convinced of her worth.  Therefore
+she must be beautiful.  He thought her pretty.  She would be pretty.
+But how impress him?  By what appeal?  The pathetic? the tenderly
+winsome? the gay?  She would be gay.  Marvellous lies occurred to
+her--a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in
+deception.  And she would excite his jealousy.  Upon that feeling she
+would play.  She would blow hot; she would blow cold.  She would reduce
+him to agony--the most poignant agony he had ever suffered.  Then she
+would win him.
+
+To this end, acting according to the enlightenment of her kind, she
+plied her pencil and puffs; and when, at last, she stood before the
+mirror, new gowned, beautiful after the conventions of her kind, blind
+to the ghastliness of it, ignorant of the secret of her strength, she
+had a triumphant consciousness of power.
+
+"He'll love me," she thought, with a snap of the teeth.  "He's got to!"
+
+
+Jim Millette knocked--and pushed the door ajar, and diffidently
+intruded his head.
+
+"Hello, Jim!" she cried.  "Come in!"
+
+The man would not enter.  "I can't, Millie," he faltered.   "I just got
+a minute."
+
+"Oh, come on in!" said she, contemptuously.  "Come in and tell me about
+it.  What did you do it for, Jim?  You got good and even, didn't you?
+Eh, Jim?" she taunted.  "You got even!"
+
+"It wasn't that, Millie," he protested.
+
+"Oh, wasn't it?" she shrilled.
+
+"No, it wasn't, Millie.  I didn't have no grudge against you."
+
+"Then what was it?  Come in and tell me!" she laughed.  "You dassn't,
+Jim!  You're afraid! come in," she flashed, "and I'll make you lick my
+shoes!  And when you're crawling on the floor, Jim, like a slimy dog,
+I'll kick you out.  Hear me, you pup?  What you take my child in there
+for?" she cried.  "Hear me?  Aw, you pup!" she snarled.  "You're afraid
+to come in!"
+
+"Don't go on, Millie," he warned her.  "Don't you go on like that.
+Maybe I _will_ come in.  And if I do, my girl, it won't be me that'll
+be lickin' shoes.  It might be _you_!"
+
+"Me!" she scorned.  "You ain't got no hold on me no more.  Come in and
+try it!"
+
+The man hesitated.
+
+"Come on!" she taunted.
+
+"I ain't coming in, Millie," he answered.  "I didn't come up to come
+in.  I just come up to tell you I was sorry."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I didn't know you was there, Millie," the man continued.  "If I'd
+knowed you was with the Forty Flirts, I wouldn't have took the boy
+there.  And I come up to tell you so."
+
+Overcome by a sudden and agonizing recollection of the scene, she put
+her hands to her face.
+
+"And I come up to tell you something else," the acrobat continued,
+speaking gently.  "I tell you, Millie, you better look out.  If you
+ain't careful, you'll lose him for good.  He took it hard, Millie.
+Hard!  It broke the little fellow all up.  It hurt him--awful!"
+
+She began to walk the floor.  In the room the light was failing.  It
+was growing dark--an angry portent--over the roofs of the opposite city.
+
+"Do you want him back?" the man asked.
+
+"Want him back!" she cried.
+
+"Then," said he, his voice soft, grave, "take care!"
+
+"Want him back?" she repeated, beginning, now, by habit, to tear at her
+nails.  "I got to have him back!  He's mine, ain't he?  Didn't I bear
+him?  Didn't I nurse him?  Wasn't it me that--that--_made_ him?  He's
+my kid, I tell you--_mine_!  And I want him back!  Oh, I want him so!"
+
+The man entered; but the woman seemed not to know it.  He regarded her
+compassionately.
+
+"That there curate ain't got no right to him," she complained.  "_He_
+didn't have nothing to do with the boy.  It was only me and Dick.
+What's he sneaking around here for--taking Dick's boy away?  The boy's
+half mine and half Dick's.  The curate ain't got no share.  And now
+Dick's dead--and he's _all_ mine!  The curate ain't got nothing to do
+with it.  We don't want no curate here.  I raised that boy for myself.
+I didn't do it to give him to no curate.  What right's he got coming
+around here--getting a boy he didn't have no pain to bear or trouble to
+raise?  I tell you _I_ got that boy.  He's mine--and I want him!"
+
+"But you give the boy to the curate, Millie!"
+
+"No, I didn't!" she lied.  "He took the boy.  He come sneaking around
+here making trouble.  _I_ didn't give him no boy.  And I want him
+back," she screamed, in a gust of passion.  "I want my boy back!"
+
+A rumble of thunder--failing, far off--came from the sea.
+
+"Millie," the acrobat persisted, "you said you wasn't fit to bring him
+up."
+
+"I ain't," she snapped.  "But I don't care.  He's mine--and I'll have
+him."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Jim," the woman said, now quiet, laying her hands on the acrobat's
+shoulders, looking steadily into his eyes, "that boy's mine.  I want
+him--I want him--back.  But I don't want him if he don't love me.  And
+if I can't have him--if I can't have him----"
+
+"Millie!"
+
+"I'll be all alone, Jim--and I'll want----"
+
+He caught her hands.  "Me?" he asked.  "Will you want me?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Millie," he said, speaking hurriedly, "_won't_ you want me?  I've took
+up with the little Tounson blonde.  But _she_ wouldn't care.  You know
+how it goes, Millie.  It's only for business.  She and me team up.
+That's all.  She wouldn't care.  And if you want me--if you want me,
+Millie, straight and regular, for better or for worse--if you want me
+that way, Millie----"
+
+"Don't, Jim!"
+
+He let her hands fall--and drew away.  "I love you too much," he said,
+"to butt in now.  But if the boy goes back on you, Millie, I'll
+come--again.  You'll need me then--and that's why I'll come.  I don't
+want him to go back on you.  I want him to love you still.  It's
+because of the way you love him that I love you--in the way I do.  It
+ain't easy for me to say this.  It ain't easy for me to want to give
+you up.  But you're that kind of a woman, Millie.  You're that
+kind--since you got the boy.  I want to give you up.  You'd be better
+off with him.  You're--you're--_holier_--when you're with that child.
+You'd break your poor heart without that boy of yours.  And I want you
+to have him--to love him--to be loved by him.  If he comes back, you'll
+not see me again.  I've lived a life that makes me--not fit--to be with
+no child like him.  But so help me God!" the man passionately declared,
+"I hope he don't turn you down!"
+
+"You're all right, Jim!" she sobbed.  "You're all right!"
+
+"I'm going now," he said, quietly.  "But I got one more thing to say.
+Don't fool that boy!"
+
+She looked up.
+
+"Don't fool him," the man repeated.  "You'll lose him if you do."
+
+"Not fool him?  It's so easy, Jim!"
+
+"Ah, Millie," he said, with a hopeless gesture, "you're blind.  You
+don't know your own child.  You're blind--you're just blind!"
+
+"What you mean, Jim?" she demanded.
+
+"You don't know what he loves you for."
+
+"What does he love me for?"
+
+The man was at the door.  "Because," he answered, turning, "you're his
+mother!"
+
+
+It was not yet nine o'clock.  The boy would still be in the church.
+She must not yet set out for the park.  So she lighted the lamp.  For a
+time she posed and grimaced before the mirror.  When she was perfect in
+the part, she sat in the rocking-chair at the broad window, there to
+rehearse the deceptions it was in her mind to practice.  But while she
+watched the threatening shadows gather, the lights on the river flash
+into life and go drifting aimlessly away, her mind strayed from this
+purpose, her willful heart throbbed with sweeter feeling--his childish
+voice, the depths of his eyes, the grateful weight of his head upon her
+bosom.  Why had he loved her?  Because she was his mother!  A forgotten
+perception returned to illuminate her way--a perception, never before
+reduced to formal terms, that her virtue, her motherly tenderness, were
+infinitely more appealing to him than the sum of her other attractions.
+
+She started from the chair--her breast heaving with despairing alarm.
+Again she stood before the mirror--staring with new-opened eyes at the
+painted face, the gaudy gown: and by these things she was now horrified.
+
+"He won't love me!" she thought.  "Not this way.  He--he--couldn't!"
+
+It struck the hour.
+
+"Nine o'clock!" she cried.  "I got to _do_ something!"
+
+She looked helplessly about the room.  Why had he loved her?  Because
+she was his mother!  She would be his mother--nothing more: just his
+mother.  She would go to him with that appeal.  She would not seek to
+win him.  She would but tell him that she was his mother.  She would be
+his mother--true and tender and holy.  He would not resist her plea....
+This determined, she acted resolutely and in haste: she stripped off
+the gown, flung it on the floor, kicked the silken heap under the bed;
+she washed the paint from her face, modestly laid her hair, robed
+herself anew.  And when again, with these new, seeing eyes, she looked
+into the glass, she found that she was young, unspoiled--still lovely:
+a sweetly wistful woman, whom he resembled.  Moreover, there came to
+transform her, suddenly, gloriously, a revelation: that of the
+spiritual significance of her motherhood.
+
+"Thank God!" she thought, uplifted by this vision.  "Oh, thank God!
+I'm like them other people.  I'm fit to bring him up!"
+
+It thundered ominously.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Nearing the Sea_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Last Appeal_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE LAST APPEAL_
+
+She sat waiting for him at the bench by the lilac bush.  He was late,
+she thought--strangely late.  She wondered why.  It was dark.  The
+night was close and hot.  There was no breath of air stirring in the
+park.  From time to time the lightning flashed.  In fast lessening
+intervals came the thunder.  Presently she caught ear of his step on
+the pavement--still distant: approaching, not from the church, but from
+the direction of the curate's home.
+
+"And he's not running!" she thought, quick to take alarm.
+
+They were inexplicable--these lagging feet.  He had never before
+dawdled on the way.  Her alarm increased.  She waited anxiously--until,
+with eyes downcast, he stood before her.
+
+"Richard!" she tenderly said.
+
+"I'm here, mother," he answered; but he did not look at her.
+
+She put her arms around him.  "Your mother," she whispered, while she
+kissed him, "is glad--to feel you--lying here."
+
+He lay quiet against her--his face on her bosom.  She was thrilled by
+this sweet pressure.
+
+"Have you been happy?" she asked.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor I, dear!"
+
+He turned his face--not to her: to the flaming cross above the church.
+She had invited a question.  But he made no response.
+
+"Nor I," she repeated.
+
+Still he gazed at the cross.  It was shining in a black cloud--high in
+the sky.  She felt him tremble.
+
+"Hold me tight!" he said.
+
+She drew him to her--glad to have him ask her to: having no disquieting
+question.
+
+"Tighter!" he implored.
+
+She rocked him.  "Hush, dear!" she crooned.  "You're safe--with your
+mother.  What frightens you?"
+
+"The cross!" he sobbed.
+
+God knows! 'twas a pity that his childish heart misinterpreted the
+message of the cross--changing his loving purpose into sin.  But the
+misinterpretation was not forever to endure....
+
+
+The wind began to stir the leaves--tentative gusts: swirling eagerly
+through the park.  There was a flash--an instant clap of thunder,
+breaking overhead, rumbling angrily away.  Two men ran past.  Great
+drops of rain splashed on the pavement.
+
+"Let us go home," the boy said.
+
+"Not yet!" she protested.  "Oh, not yet!"
+
+He escaped from her arms.
+
+"Don't go, Richard!" she whimpered.  "Please don't, dear! Not yet.
+I--I'm--oh, I'm not ready to say good-night.  Not yet!"
+
+He took her hand.  "Come, mother!" he said.
+
+"Not yet!"
+
+He dropped her hand--sprang away from her with a startled little cry.
+"Oh, mother," he moaned, "don't you want me?"
+
+"Home?" she asked, blankly.  "Home--with me?"
+
+"Oh, yes, mother! Let me go home.  Quick I Let us go....  The curate
+says I know best.  I went straight to him--yesterday--and told him.
+And he said I was wiser than he....  And I said good-bye.  Don't send
+me back.  For, oh, I want to go home--with you!"
+
+She opened her arms.  At that moment a brilliant flash of lightning
+illuminated the world.  For the first time the child caught sight of
+her face--the sweet, real face of his mother: now radiant, touched by
+the finger of the Good God Himself.
+
+"Is it you?" he whispered.
+
+"I am your mother."
+
+He leaped into her arms--found her wet eyes with his lips.  "Mother!"
+he cried.
+
+"My son!" she said.
+
+He turned again to the flaming cross--a little smile of defiance upon
+his lips.  But the defiance passed swiftly: for it was then revealed to
+him that his mother was good; and he knew that what the cross signified
+would continue with him, wherever he went, that goodness and peace
+might abide within his heart.  Hand in hand, while the thunder still
+rolled and the rain came driving with the wind, they hurried away
+towards the Box Street tenement....
+
+
+Let them go!  Why not?  Let them depart into their world!  It needs
+them.  They will glorify it.  Nor will they suffer loss.  Let them go!
+Love flourishes in the garden of the world we know.  Virtue is forever
+in bloom.  Let them go to their place!  Why should we wish to deprive
+the unsightly wilderness of its flowers?  Let the tenderness of this
+mother and son continue to grace it!
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Last Appeal_]
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27550-8.txt or 27550-8.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/5/5/27550/
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+Updated editions will replace the previous one--the old editions
+will be renamed.
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+
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mother
+
+Author: Norman Duncan
+
+Illustrator: H. E. Fritz
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2008 [EBook #27550]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ISO-8859-1
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+</pre>
+
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-cover"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-cover.jpg" ALT="Cover" BORDER="0" WIDTH="385" HEIGHT="583">
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+<BR><BR>
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+<A NAME="img-front1"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front1.jpg" ALT="The Mothe" BORDER="0" WIDTH="246" HEIGHT="180">
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+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-front2"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-front2.jpg" ALT="The Mother" BORDER="0" WIDTH="249" HEIGHT="369">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-title"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-title.jpg" ALT="Title page" BORDER="0" WIDTH="260" HEIGHT="444">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H1 ALIGN="center">
+The Mother
+</H1>
+
+<BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+by
+</H3>
+
+<H2 ALIGN="center">
+Norman Duncan
+</H2>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+<BR>
+Publishers
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-copy"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-copy.jpg" ALT="Copyright" BORDER="0" WIDTH="183" HEIGHT="142">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H5 ALIGN="center">
+Copyright 1905
+<BR>
+by
+<BR>
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+<BR>
+New York &mdash; Chicago &mdash; Toronto
+</H5>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-ded"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-ded.jpg" ALT="Dedication" BORDER="0" WIDTH="168" HEIGHT="171">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+To
+<BR>
+E. H. D.
+</H3>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-decor"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-decor.jpg" ALT="Decorations" BORDER="0" WIDTH="184" HEIGHT="102">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H4 ALIGN="center">
+The Decorations
+<BR>
+In This Book Were
+<BR>
+Designed by H. E. Fritz
+</H4>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<DIV STYLE="background: url(images\img-toc1.jpg); background-repeat: no-repeat;
+background-attachment: scroll; margin-left: 30%">
+
+<BR STYLE="line-height: 2in">
+
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap01">BY PROXY</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap02">THE RIVER</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap03">A GARDEN OF LIES</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap04">THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap05">AT MIDNIGHT</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap06">A MEETING BY CHANCE</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap07">RENUNCIATION</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap08">IN THE CURRENT</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap09">THE CHORISTER</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap10">ALIENATION</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap11">A CHILD'S PRAYER</A></SPAN><BR>
+
+<BR STYLE="line-height: .5in">
+
+</DIV>
+
+<BR>
+
+<DIV STYLE="background: url(images\img-toc2.jpg); background-repeat: no-repeat;
+background-attachment: scroll; margin-left: 30%">
+
+<BR STYLE="line-height: 2in">
+
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap12">MR. PODDLE'S FINALE</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap13">HIS MOTHER</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap14">NEARING THE SEA</A></SPAN><BR>
+<SPAN STYLE="margin-left: 2em"><A HREF="#chap15">THE LAST APPEAL</A></SPAN><BR>
+
+<BR STYLE="line-height: 2in">
+
+</DIV>
+
+<BR><BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap01"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-009"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-009.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _By Proxy_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="236" HEIGHT="167">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>BY PROXY</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It will be recalled without effort&mdash;possibly, indeed, without
+interest&mdash;that the obsequies of the old Senator Boligand were a
+distinguished success: a fashionable, proper function, ordered by the
+young widow with exquisite taste, as all the world said, and conducted
+without reproach, as the undertaker and the clergy very heartily
+agreed.  At the Church of the Lifted Cross, the incident of the child,
+the blonde lady and the mysteriously veiled man, who sat in awe and
+bewildered amazement where the shadows gave deepest seclusion, escaped
+notice.  Not that the late Senator Boligand was in life aware of the
+existence of the child or the lady or the strange fellow with the veil.
+Nothing of the sort.  The one was the widow of Dick Slade, the other
+his son, born in wedlock; and the third was the familiar counsellor and
+intimate of them all.  The Senator was for once turned to good account:
+was made contributor to the sweetness of life, to the comfort of the
+humble.  That was all.  And I fancy that the shade of the grim old
+robber, lurking somewhere in the softly coloured gloom of the chancel,
+was not altogether averse to the farce in which his earthly tabernacle
+was engaged....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When Dick Slade died in the big red tenement of Box Street, he died as
+other men die, complaining of the necessity; and his son, in the way of
+all tender children, sorely wept: not because his father was now lost
+to him, which was beyond his comprehension, but because the man must be
+put in a grave&mdash;a cold place, dark and suffocating, being underground,
+as the child had been told.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want my father," he woefully protested, "to be planted!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Planted!" cried the mother, throwing up her hands in indignant denial.
+"Who told you he'd be planted?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madame Lacara."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's a liar," said the woman, composedly, without resentment.  "We'll
+cut the <I>planting</I> out of <I>this</I> funeral."  Her ingenuity, her
+resourcefulness, her daring, when the happiness of her child was
+concerned, were usually sufficient to the emergency.  "Why, darling!"
+she exclaimed.  "Your father will be taken right up into the sky.  He
+won't be put in no grave.  He'll go right straight to a place where
+it's all sunshine&mdash;where it's all blue and high and as bright as day."
+She bustled about: keeping an eye alert for the effect of her promises.
+She was not yet sure how this glorious ascension might be managed; but
+she had never failed to deceive him to his own contentment, and 'twas
+not her habit to take fainthearted measures.  "They been lying to you,
+dear," she complained.  "Don't you fret about graves.  You just wait,"
+she concluded, significantly, "and see!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poddle and me," she added, with a wag of the head to convince him,
+"will show you where your father goes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish," the boy said, wistfully, "that he wasn't dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you do it!" she flashed.  "It don't make no difference to him.
+It's a good thing.  I bet he's glad to be dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, he is!  Don't you think he isn't.  There ain't nothing like being
+dead.   Everybody's happy&mdash;when they're dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's so still!" the boy whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It feels fine to be still&mdash;like that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And he's so cold!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No!" she scorned.  "He don't feel cold.  You think he's cold.  But he
+ain't.  That's just what you <I>think</I>.  He's comfortable.  He's glad to
+be dead.  Everybody's glad to be dead."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy shuddered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you do that no more!" said the woman.  "It don't hurt to be
+dead.  Honest, it don't!  It feels real good to be that way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I&mdash;I&mdash;I don't think I'd like&mdash;to be dead!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't have to if you don't want to," the woman replied, thrown
+into a confusion of pain and alarm.  To comfort him, to shield him from
+agony, to keep the shadow of fear from falling upon him: she desired
+nothing more; and she was content to succeed if but for the moment.  "I
+tell you," she continued, "you never will be dead&mdash;if you don't want
+to.  Your father wanted to be dead.  'I think, Millie,' says he, 'I'd
+like to be dead.'  'All right, Dick,' says I.  'If you want to, I won't
+stand in your way.  But I don't know about the boy.'  'Oh,' says he,
+'the boy won't stand in my way.'  'I guess that's right, Dick,' says I,
+'for the boy loves you.'  And so," she concluded, "he died.  But <I>you</I>
+don't have to die.  You'll never die&mdash;not unless you want to."  She
+kissed him.  "Don't you be afraid, dear!" she crooned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm not&mdash;afraid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, then," she asked, puzzled, "what <I>are</I> you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," he faltered.  "I think it makes me&mdash;sick at
+the&mdash;stomach."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had turned white.  She took him in her arms, to comfort and hearten
+him&mdash;an unfailing device: her kisses, her warm, ample bosom, her close
+embrace; he was by these always consoled....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Next day, then, in accordance with the woman's device, the boy and his
+mother set out with the veiled man for the Church of the Lifted Cross,
+where the obsequies of Senator Boligand were to take place.  It was sad
+weather&mdash;a cold rain falling, the city gray, all the world black-clad
+and dripping and sour of countenance.  The veiled man said never a
+word; he held the boy's hand tight, and strode gloomily on&mdash;silent of
+melancholy, of protest, of ill temper: there was no knowing, for his
+face was hid.  The woman, distinguished by a mass of blinding blonde
+hair and a complexion susceptible to change by the weather, was dressed
+in the ultra-fashionable way&mdash;the small differences of style all
+accentuated: the whole tawdry and shabby and limp in the rain.  The
+child, a slender boy, delicately white of skin, curly headed, with
+round, dark eyes, outlooking in wonder and troubled regard, but yet
+bravely enough, trotted between the woman and the man, a hand in the
+hand of each....  And when they came to the Church of the Lifted Cross;
+and when the tiny, flickering lights, and the stained windows, and the
+shadows overhead, and the throbbing, far-off music had worked their
+spell upon him, he snuggled close to his mother, wishing himself well
+away from the sadness and mystery of the place, but glad that its
+solemn splendour honoured the strange change his father had chosen to
+undergo.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have they brought papa yet?" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush!" she answered.  "He's come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a moment she was in a panic&mdash;lest the child's prattle, being
+perilously indiscreet, involve them all in humiliating difficulties.
+Scandal of this sort would be intolerable to the young Boligand widow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where is he?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't talk so loud, dear.  He's down in front&mdash;where all the lights
+are."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Can't we go there?'
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, no!" she whispered, quickly.  "It isn't the way.  We must sit
+here.  Don't talk, dear; it isn't the way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'd like to&mdash;kiss him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, my!" she exclaimed.  "It isn't allowed.  We got to sit right here.
+That's the way it's always done.  Hush, dear!  Please don't talk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With prayer and soulful dirges&mdash;employing white robes and many lights
+and the voices of children&mdash;the body of Senator Boligand was dealt
+with, in the vast, dim church, according to the forms prescribed, and
+with due regard for the wishes of the young widow.  The Senator was an
+admirable substitute; Dick Slade's glorious ascension was accomplished.
+And the heart of the child was comforted by this beauty: for then he
+knew that his father was by some high magic admitted to the place of
+which his mother had told him&mdash;some place high and blue and ever light
+as day.  The fear of death passed from him.  He was glad, for his
+father's sake, that his father had died; and he wished that he, too,
+might some day know the glory to which his father had attained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But when the earthly remains of the late distinguished Senator were
+borne down the aisle in solemn procession, the boy had a momentary
+return of grief.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is that papa in the box?" he whimpered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His mother put her lips to his ear.  "Yes," she gasped.  "But don't
+talk.  It isn't allowed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The veiled man turned audibly uneasy.  "Cuss it!" he fumed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, father!" the boy sobbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With happy promptitude the veiled man acted.  He put a hand over the
+boy's mouth.  "For God's sake, Millie," he whispered to the woman,
+"let's get out of here!  We'll be run in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush, dear!" the woman commanded: for she was much afraid.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+After that, the child was quiet.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+From the room in the Box Street tenement, meantime, the body of Dick
+Slade had been taken in a Department wagon to a resting-place befitting
+in degree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie," the veiled man protested, that night, "you didn't ought to
+fool the boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It don't matter, Poddle," said she.  "And I don't want him to feel
+bad."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You didn't ought to do it," the man persisted.  "It'll make trouble
+for him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't see him hurt," said the woman, doggedly.  "I love him so much.
+Poddle, I just can't!  It hurts <I>me</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy was now in bed.  "Mother," he asked, lifting himself from the
+pillow, "when will I die?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, child!" she ejaculated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish," said the boy, "it was to-morrow."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There!" said the woman, in triumph, to the man.  "He ain't afraid of
+death no more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I told you so, Millie!" the man exclaimed, at the same instant.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But he ain't afraid to die," she persisted.  "And that's all I want."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can't fool him always," the man warned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy was then four years old....
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-022"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-022.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _By Proxy_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="221" HEIGHT="75">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap02"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-023"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-023.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _The River_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="230" HEIGHT="157">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>THE RIVER</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Top floor rear of the Box Street tenement looked out upon the river.
+It was lifted high: the activities of the broad stream and of the
+motley world of the other shore went silently; the petty noises of
+life&mdash;the creak and puff and rumble of its labouring
+machinery,&mdash;straying upward from the fussy places below, were lost in
+the space between.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within: a bed, a stove, a table&mdash;the gaunt framework of home.  But the
+window overlooked the river; and the boy was now seven years old,
+unknowing, unquestioning, serenely obedient to the circumstances of his
+life: feeling no desire that wandered beyond the familiar presence of
+his mother&mdash;her voice and touch and brooding love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a magic window&mdash;a window turned lengthwise, broad, low,
+small-paned, disclosing wonders without end: a scene of infinite
+changes.  There was shipping below, restless craft upon the water; and
+beyond, dwarfed in the distance, was a confusion of streets, of flat,
+puffing roofs, stretching from the shining river to the far, misty
+hills, which lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs.  From the
+window&mdash;and from the love in the room&mdash;the boy looked out upon an alien
+world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and
+day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+In the evening the boy sat with his mother at the window.  Together
+they watched the shadows gather&mdash;the hills and the city and the river
+dissolve: the whole broad world turn to points of light, twinkling,
+flashing, darting, in the black, voiceless gulf.  Nor would she fail to
+watch the night come, whether in gentle weather or whipping rain: but
+there would sit, the boy in her arms, held close to her breast, her
+hand straying restlessly over his small body, intimately caressing it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The falling shadows; the river, flowing unfeelingly; the lights,
+wandering without rest, aimless, forever astray in the dark: these were
+a spell upon her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They go to the sea!" she whispered, once.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The ships, mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put his head in the hollow of her shoulder, where her cheek might
+touch his hair: all the time staring out at the lights on the river.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All the ships, all the lights on the river," she said, hoarsely, "go
+out there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The river takes them."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was made uneasy: being conscious of the deeper meaning&mdash;acutely
+aware of some strange dread stirring in her heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe," he protested, "they're glad to go away."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shook her head.  "One night," she said, leaning towards the window,
+seeming now to forget the boy, "I seen the sea.  All the lights on the
+river go different ways&mdash;when they get out there.  It is a dark and
+lonesome place&mdash;big and dark and lonesome."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said he, quickly, "you would not like to be there."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she answered.  "I do not like the sky," she continued; "it is so
+big and empty.  I do not like the sea; it is so big and dark.  And
+black winds are always blowing there; and the lights go different ways.
+The lights," she muttered, "go different ways!  I am afraid of the
+dark.  And, oh!" she moaned, suddenly crushing him to her breast,
+rocking him, in an agony of tenderness, "I am afraid of something else.
+Oh, I am afraid!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of what?" he gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To be alone!" she sobbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He released himself from her arms&mdash;sat back on her knee: quivering from
+head to foot, his hands clenched, his lips writhing.  "Don't, mother!"
+he cried.  "Don't cry.  We will not go to the sea.  We <I>will</I> not!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must," she whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She kissed him: her hand slipped under his knees; and she drew him
+close again&mdash;and there held him until he lay quiet in her arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We are like the lights on the river," she said.  "The river will take
+us to a place where the lights go different ways."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We will not go!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The river will take us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy was puzzled: he lifted his head, to watch the lights drift
+past, far below; and he was much troubled by this mystery.  She tried
+to gather his legs in her lap&mdash;to hold him as she used to do, when he
+was a child at her breast; but he was now grown too large for that, and
+she suffered, again, the familiar pain: a perception of alienation&mdash;of
+inevitable loss.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She let his legs fall.  "Soon," she sighed.  "When you are older; it
+won't be long, now.  When you are a little wiser; it will be very soon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"When I am wiser," he pondered, "we must go.  What makes me wiser?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The wise."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Are you wise?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"God help me!" she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He nestled his head on her shoulder&mdash;dismissing the mystery with a
+quick sigh.  "Never mind," he said, to comfort her.  "You will not be
+alone.  I will be with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder!" she mused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a moment more she looked out; but she did not see the river&mdash;but
+saw the wide sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the great multitude of
+lights went apart, each upon its mysterious way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother," he repeated, reproachfully, mystified by her hesitation, "I
+will always be with you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder!" she mused.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To this doubt&mdash;now clear to him beyond hope&mdash;there was instant
+response: strangely passionate, but in keeping with his nature, as she
+knew.  For a space he lay rigid on her bosom: then struggled from her
+embrace, brutally wrenching her hands apart, flinging off her arms.  He
+stood swaying: his hands clenched, his slender body aquiver, as before,
+his dark eyes blazing reproach.  It gave her no alarm, but, rather,
+exquisite pleasure, to watch his agony.  She caught him by the
+shoulders, and bent close, that by the night-light, coming in at the
+window, she might look into his eyes: wherein, swiftly, the flare of
+reproach turned to hopeless woe.  And she was glad that he suffered:
+exalted, so that she, too, trembled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," he pleaded, "say that I will always be with you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She would not: but continued to exult in his woeful apprehension.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me, mother!" he implored.  "Tell me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not yet: for there was no delight to be compared with the proved
+knowledge of his love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You do not love me," she said, to taunt him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, don't!" he moaned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, no!" she persisted.  "You don't love your mother any more."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was by this reduced to uttermost despair; and he began to beat his
+breast, in the pitiful way he had.  Perceiving, then, that she must no
+longer bait him, she opened her arms.  He sprang into them.  At once
+his sobs turned to sighs of infinite relief, which continued, until, of
+a sudden, he was hugged so tight that he had no breath left but to gasp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you will always be with me?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the way of the world," she answered, while she kissed him, "that
+sons chooses for themselves."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With that he was quite content....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+For a long time they sat silent at the window.  The boy dreamed
+hopefully of the times to come&mdash;serenity restored.  For the moment the
+woman was forgetful of the foreshadowed days, happy that the warm,
+pulsing little body of her son lay unshrinking in her arms: so
+conscious of his love and life&mdash;so wishful for a deeper sense of
+motherhood&mdash;that she slipped her hand under his jacket and felt about
+for his heart, and there let her fingers lie, within touch of its
+steady beating.  The lights still twinkled and flashed and aimlessly
+wandered in the night; but the spell of the river was lifted.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap03"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-034"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-034.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _A Garden of Lies_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="229" HEIGHT="153">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>A GARDEN OF LIES</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Withal it was a rare mood: nor, being wise, was she given to expressing
+it in this gloomy fashion.  It was her habit, rather, assiduously to
+woo him: this with kisses, soft and wet; with fleeting touches; with
+coquettish glances and the sly display of her charms; with rambling,
+fantastic tales of her desirability in the regard of men&mdash;thus
+practicing all the familiar fascinations of her kind, according to the
+enlightenment of the world she knew.  He must be persuaded, she
+thought, that his mother was beautiful, coveted; convinced of her wit
+and gaiety: else he would not love her.  Life had taught her no other
+way....  And always at break of day, when he awoke in her arms, she
+waited, with a pang of anxiety, pitilessly recurring, lest there be
+some sign that despite her feverish precautions the heedless world had
+in her nightly absence revealed that which she desperately sought to
+hide from him....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Thus, by and by, when the lamp was alight&mdash;when the shadows were all
+chased out of the window, driven back to the raw fall night, whence
+they had crept in&mdash;she lapsed abruptly into her natural manner and
+practices.  She spread a newspaper on the table, whistling in a cheery
+fashion, the while covertly observing the effect of this lively
+behaviour.  With a knowing smile, promising vast gratification, she got
+him on her knee; and together, cheek to cheek, her arm about his waist,
+they bent over the page: whereon some function of the rich, to which
+the presence of the Duchess of Croft and of the distinguished Lord
+Wychester had given sensational importance, was grotesquely pictured.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, mother," said he, spreading the picture flat, "show me you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"This here lady," she answered, evasively, "is the Duchess of Croft."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it?" he asked, without interest.  "She is very fat.  Where are you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And here," she proceeded, "is Lord Wychester."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother," he demanded, "where are <I>you</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was disconcerted; no promising evasion immediately occurred to her.
+"Maybe," she began, tentatively, "this lady here&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no!" he cried, looking up with a little laugh.  "It is not like
+you, at all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," she said, "it's probably meant for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shook his head; and by the manner of this she knew that he would not
+be deceived.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps," she said, "the Duchess told the man not to put me in the
+picture.  I guess that's it.  She was awful jealous.  You see, dear,"
+she went on, very solemnly, "Lord Wychester took a great fancy to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked up with interest.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To&mdash;my shape," she added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" said he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And that," she continued, noting his pleasure, "made the Duchess hot;
+for <I>she's</I> too fat to have much of a figure.  Most men, you know," she
+added, as though reluctant in her own praise, "do fancy mine."  She
+brushed his cheek with her lips.  "Don't you think, dear," she asked,
+assuming an air of girlish coquetry, thus to compel the compliment,
+"that I'm&mdash;rather&mdash;pretty?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think, mother," he answered, positively, "that you're very, very
+pretty."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It made her eyes shine to hear it.  "Well," she resumed, improvising
+more confidently, now, "the Duchess was awful mortified because Lord
+Wychester danced with me seventeen times.  'Lord Wychester,' says she,
+'what <I>do</I> you see in that blonde with the diamonds?'  'Duchess,' says
+he, 'I bet the blonde don't weigh over a hundred and ten!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no answering smile; the boy glanced at the picture of the
+wise and courtly old Lord Wychester, gravely regarded that of the
+Duchess of Croft, of whose matronly charms, of whose charities and
+amiable qualities, all the world knows.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did she say?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Oh, dear me, Lord Wychester!' says she.  'If you're looking for
+bones,' says she, 'that blonde is a regular glue-factory!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He caught his breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'A regular glue-factory,'" she repeated, inviting sympathy.  "That's
+what she said."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you cry?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not me!" she scorned.  "Cry?  Not me!  Not for no mountain like her!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And what," he asked, "did Lord Wychester do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Back to the side-show, Duchess!' says Lord Wychester.  'You're too
+fat for decent company.  My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial
+to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but <I>my</I> taste runs to slim
+blondes.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No amusement was excited by Lord Wychester's second sally.  In the
+world she knew, it would have provoked a shout of laughter.  The boy's
+gravity disquieted her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you laugh?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Everybody," she answered, pitifully, "give her the laugh."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sighed&mdash;somewhat wistfully.  "I wish," he said, "that <I>you</I> hadn't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not!" she wondered, in genuine surprise.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, dear!" she exclaimed, a note of alarm in her voice.  "It isn't
+bad manners!  Anyhow," she qualified, quick to catch her cue, "I didn't
+laugh much.  I hardly laughed at all.  I don't believe I <I>did</I> laugh."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm glad," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then, "I'm sure of it," she ventured, boldly; and she observed with
+relief that he was not incredulous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did the Duchess cry?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, my, no!  'Waiter,' says the Duchess, 'open another bottle of that
+wine.  I feel faint.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What did Lord Wychester do then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He paid for the wine."  It occurred to her that she might now surely
+delight him.  "Then he wanted to buy a bottle for me," she continued,
+eagerly, "just to spite the Duchess.  'If <I>she</I> can have wine,' says
+he, 'there isn't no good reason why <I>you</I> got to go dry.'  But I
+couldn't see it.  'Oh, come on!' says he.  'What's the matter with you?
+Have a drink.'  'No, you don't!' says I.  'Why not?' says he."  She
+drew the boy a little closer, and, in the pause she patted his hand.
+"'Because,' says I," she whispered, tenderly, "'I got a son; and I
+<I>don't want him to do no drinking when he grows up</I>!'"  She paused
+again&mdash;that the effect of the words and of the caress might not be
+interrupted.  "'Come off!' says Lord Wychester," she went on; "'you
+haven't got no son.'  'You wouldn't think to look at me,' says I, 'that
+I got a son seven years old the twenty-third of last month.'  'To the
+tall timber!' says he.  'You're too young and pretty.  I'll give you a
+thousand dollars for a kiss.'  'No, you don't!' says I.  'Why not?'
+says he.  'Because,' says I, 'you don't.'  'I'll give you two
+thousand,' says he."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was interrupted by the boy; his arms were anxiously stealing round
+her neck.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Three thousand!' says he."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother," the boy whispered, "did you give it to him?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again, she drew him to her: as all mothers will, when, in the twilight,
+they tell tales to their children, and the climax approaches.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Four thousand!' says he."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother," the boy implored, "tell me quick!  What did you say?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Lord Wychester,' says I, 'I don't give kisses,' says I, 'because my
+son doesn't want me to do no such thing!  No, sir!  Not for a million
+dollars!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was then made happy by his rapturous affection; and she now first
+perceived&mdash;in a benighted way&mdash;that virtue was more appealing to him
+than the sum of her physical attractions.  Upon this new thought she
+pondered.  She was unable to reduce it to formal terms, to be sure; but
+she felt a new delight, a new hope, and was uplifted, though she knew
+not why.  Later&mdash;at the crisis of their lives&mdash;the perception returned
+with sufficient strength to illuminate her way....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Presently the boy broke in upon her musing.  "It was blondes Lord
+Wychester liked," he remarked, with pride; "wasn't it, mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Slim blondes," she corrected.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Bleached blondes?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was appalled by the disclosure; and she was taken unaware: nor did
+she dare discover the extent, the significance, of this new
+sophistication, nor whence it came, lest she be all at once involved in
+a tangle of explanation, from which there could be no sure issue.  She
+sighed; her head drooped, until it rested on his shoulder, her wet
+lashes against his cheek&mdash;despairing, helpless.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What makes you sad?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then she gathered impetuous courage.  She must be calm, she knew; but
+she must divert him.  "See," she began, "what it says about your mother
+in the paper!"  She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome
+description of the great Multon ball&mdash;the list of fashionables, the
+costumes.  "Here it is!  'She was the loveliest woman at the dance.'
+That's me.  'All the men said so.  What if she is a bleached blonde?
+Some people says that bleached blondes is no good.  It's a lie!'" she
+cried, passionately, to the bewilderment of the boy.  "'God help them!
+There's honest people everywhere.'  Are you listening?  Here's more
+about me.  'She does the best she can.  Maybe she <I>don't</I> amount to
+much, maybe she <I>is</I> a bleached blonde; but she does the best she can.
+She never done no wrong in all her life.  She loves her son too much
+for that.  Oh, she loves her son!  She'd rather die than have him feel
+ashamed of her.  There isn't a better woman in the world, There isn't a
+better mother&mdash;&mdash;'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He clapped his hands.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you believe it?" she demanded.  "Don't you believe what the
+paper says?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's true!" he cried.  "It's all true!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How do you know," she whispered, intensely, "that it's all true?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I&mdash;just&mdash;<I>feel</I> it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were interrupted by the clock.  It struck seven times....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+In great haste and alarm she put him from her knee; and she caught up
+her hat and cloak, and kissed him, and ran out, calling back her
+good-night, again and again, as she clattered down the stairs....  In
+the streets of the place to which she hurried, there were flaming
+lights, the laughter of men and flaunting women, the crash and rumble
+and clang of night-traffic, the blatant clamour of the pleasures of
+night; shuffling, blear-eyed derelicts of passion, creeping beldames,
+peevish children, youth consuming itself; rags and garish jewels,
+hunger, greasy content&mdash;a confusion of wretchedness, of greed and grim
+want, of delirious gaiety, of the sins that stalk in darkness....
+Through it all she brushed, unconscious&mdash;lifted from it by the magic of
+this love: dwelling only upon the room that overlooked the river, and
+upon the child within; remembering the light in his eyes and the
+tenderness of his kiss.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-048"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-048.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _A Garden of Lies_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="213" HEIGHT="70">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap04"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-049"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-049.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _The Celebrity in Love_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="235" HEIGHT="158">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+While the boy sat alone, in wistful idleness, there came a knock at the
+door&mdash;a pompous rat-tat-tat, with a stout tap-tap or two added, once
+and for all to put the quality of the visitor beyond doubt.  The door
+was then cautiously pushed ajar to admit the head of the personage thus
+impressively heralded.   And a most extraordinary head it was&mdash;of
+fearsome aspect; nothing but long and intimate familiarity could resign
+the beholder to the unexpected appearance of it.  Long, tawny hair, now
+sadly unkempt, fell abundantly from crown to shoulders; and hair as
+tawny, as luxuriantly thick, almost as long, completely covered the
+face, from every part of which it sprang, growing shaggy and rank at
+the eyebrows, which served to ambush two sharp little eyes: so that the
+whole bore a precise resemblance to an ill-natured Skye terrier.  It is
+superfluous to add that this was at once the face and the fortune of
+Toto, the Dog-faced Man, known in private life, to as many intimates as
+a jealous profession can tolerate, as Mr. Poddle: for the present
+disabled from public appearance by the quality of the air supplied to
+the exhibits at Hockley's Musee, his lungs being, as he himself
+expressed it, "not gone, by no means, but gittin' restless."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother gone?" asked the Dog-faced Man.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She has gone, Mr. Poddle," the boy answered, "to dine with the Mayor."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" Mr. Poddle ejaculated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you say that?" the boy asked, frowning uneasily.  "You always
+say, 'Oh!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do I?  'Oh!'  Like that?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you do it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Celebrities," replied Mr. Poddle, testily, entering at that moment,
+"is not accountable.  Me bein' one, don't ask me no questions."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" said the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle sat himself in a chair by the window: and there began to
+catch and vent his breath; but whether in melancholy sighs or snorts of
+indignation it was impossible to determine.  Having by these violent
+means restored himself to a state of feeling more nearly normal, he
+trifled for a time with the rings flashing on his thin, white fingers,
+listlessly brushed the dust from the skirt of his rusty frock coat,
+heaved a series of unmistakable sighs: whereupon&mdash;and by this strange
+occupation the boy was quite fascinated&mdash;he drew a little comb, a
+little brush, a little mirror, from his pocket; and having set up the
+mirror in a convenient place, he proceeded to dress his hair, with
+particular attention to the eyebrows, which, by and by, he tenderly
+braided into two limp little horns: so that 'twas not long before he
+looked much less like a frowsy Skye terrier, much more like an owl.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The hour, Richard," he sighed, as he deftly parted his hair in the
+middle of his nose, "has came!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+With such fond and hopeless feeling were these enigmatical words
+charged that the boy could do nothing but heave a sympathetic sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see before you, Richard, what you never seen before.  A man in the
+clutches," Mr. Poddle tragically pursued, giving a vicious little twist
+to his left eyebrow, "of the tender passion!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" the boy muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Fame,'" Mr. Poddle continued, improvising a newspaper head-line, to
+make himself clear, "'No Shield Against the Little God's Darts.'  Git
+me?  The high and the low gits the arrows in the same place."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Does it&mdash;hurt?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hurt!" cried Mr. Poddle, furiously.  "It's perfectly excrugiating!
+Hurt?  Why&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, "but you are biting your
+mustache."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, promptly.  "Glad to know it.  Can't afford
+to lose no more hirsute adornment.  And I'm give to ravagin' it in
+moments of excitement, especially sorrow.  Always tell me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will," the boy gravely promised.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Pink-eyed Albino," Mr. Poddle continued, now released from the
+necessity of commanding his feelings, in so far as the protection of
+his hair was concerned, "was fancy; the Circassian Beauty was
+fascination; the Female Sampson was the hallugination of sky-blue
+tights; but the Mexican Sword Swallower," he murmured, with a
+melancholy wag, "is&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Poddle," the boy warned, "you are&mdash;at it again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, hastily eliminating the danger.  "What I was
+about to remark," was his lame conclusion, "was that the Mexican Sword
+Swallower is <I>love</I>."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dog-faced Man snapped a sigh in two.  "Richard," he insinuated
+suspiciously, "what you sayin', 'Oh!' for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Wasn't the Bearded Lady, love?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Love!" laughed Mr. Poddle.  "Ha, ha!  Far from it!  Not so!  The
+Bearded Lady was the snare of ambition.  'Marriage Arranged Between the
+Young Duke of Blueblood and the Daughter of the Clothes-pin King.
+Millions of the Higgleses to Repair the Duke's Shattered Fortunes.'
+Git me?  'Wedding of the Bearded Lady and the Dog-faced Man.  Sunday
+Afternoon at Hockley's Popular Musee.  No Extra Charge for Admission.
+Fabulous Quantity of Human Hair on Exhibition At the Same Instant.
+Hirsute Wonders To Tour the Country at Enormous Expense.'  Git me?
+Same thing.  Love?  Ha, ha!  Not so!  There's no more love in <I>that</I>,"
+Mr. Poddle concluded, bitterly, "than&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Poddle, you are&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks," faltered Mr. Poddle.  "As I was about to remark when
+you&mdash;ah&mdash;come to the rescue&mdash;love is froze out of high life.  Us
+natural phenomenons is the slaves of our inheritages."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you said the Bearded Lady was love at last!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Duke Said To Be Madly In Love With the American Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle
+composedly replied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't quite&mdash;get you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Us celebrities has our secrets.  High life is hollow.  Public must be
+took into account.  'Sacrificed On His Country's Altar.'  Git me?
+'Good of the Profession.'  Broken hearts&mdash;and all that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you have broken the Bearded Lady's heart?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle was by this recalled to his own lamentable condition.  "I've
+gone and broke my own," he burst out; "for I'm give to understand that
+the lovely Sword Swallower is got entangled with a tattooed man.  Not,"
+Mr. Poodle hastily added, "with a <I>real</I> tattooed man!  Not by no
+means!  Far from it!  <I>He's only half done!</I> Git me?  His legs is
+finished; and I'm give to understand that the Chinese dragon on his
+back is gettin' near the end of its tail.  There <I>may</I> be a risin' sun
+on his chest, and a snake drawed out on his waist; of that I've heard
+rumors, but I ain't had no reports.  Not," said Mr. Poddle,
+impressively, "what you might call undenigeable reports.  And Richard,"
+he whispered, in great excitement and contempt, "that there half-cooked
+freak won't be done for a year!  He's bein' worked over on the
+installment plan.  And I'm give to understand that she'll wait!  Oh,
+wimmen!" the Dog-faced Man apostrophized.  "Took by shapes and
+complexions&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, diffidently, "but your
+eyebrow&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks," Mr. Poddle groaned, his frenzy collapsing.  "As I was about
+to say, wimmen is like arithmetic; there ain't a easy sum in the book."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Poddle!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, in deep disgust.  "Am I at it again?
+O'erwhelming grief!  This here love will be the ruin of me.  'Bank
+Cashier Defaulted For a Woman.'  I've lost more priceless strands since
+I seen that charming creature than I'll get back in a year.  I've bit
+'em off!  I've tore 'em out!  If this here goes on I'll be a Hairless
+Wonder in a month.  'Suicided For Love.'  Same thing exactly.  And
+what's worse," he continued, dejectedly, "the objeck of my adoration
+don't look at it right.  She takes me for a common audience.  No regard
+for talent.  No appreciation for hair in the wrong place.  'Genius
+Jilted By A Factory Girl.'  And she takes that manufactured article of
+a tattooed man for a regular platform attraction!  Don't seem to
+<I>know</I>, Richard, that freaks is born, not made.  What's fame, anyhow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy did not know.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, cuss me!" the Dog-faced Man exploded, "she treats me as if I was
+dead-headed into the Show!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Excuse me, but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thanks.  God knows, Richard, I ain't in love with her throat and
+stummick.  It ain't because the one's unequalled for resistin'
+razor-edged steel and the other stands unrivalled in its capacity for
+holdin' cold metal.  It ain't her talent, Richard.  No, it ain't her
+talent.  It ain't her beauty.  It ain't even her fame.  It ain't so
+much her massive proportions.  It's just the way she darns stockings.
+Just the way she sits up there on the platform darnin' them stockings
+as if there wasn't no such thing as an admirin' public below.  It's
+just her <I>self</I>.  Git me?  'Give Up A Throne To Wed A Butcher's
+Daughter.'  Understand?  Why, God bless you, Richard, if she was a Fiji
+Island Cannibal I'd love her just the same!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think, Mr. Poddle," the boy ventured, "that I'd tell her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I did," Mr. Poddle replied.  "Much to my regrets I did.  I writ.
+Worked up a beautiful piece out of 'The Lightning Letter-writer for
+Lovers.'  'Oh, beauteous Sword-Swallower,' I writ, 'pet of the public,
+pride of the sideshow, bright particular star in the constellation of
+natural phenomenons!  One who is not unknown to fame is dazzled by your
+charms.  He dares to lift his stricken eyes, to give vent to the
+tumultuous beatings of his manly bosom, to send you, in fact, this
+note.  And if you want to know who done it, wear a red rose to-night.'
+Well," Mr. Poddle continued, "she seen me give it to the peanut-boy.
+And knowin' who it come from, she writ back.  She writ," Mr. Poddle
+dramatically repeated, "right back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The pause was so long, so painful, that the boy was moved to inquire
+concerning the answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It stabs me," said Mr. Poddle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think I'd like to know," said the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Are you much give,' says she, 'to barkin' in your sleep?'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A very real tear left the eye of Mr. Poddle, ran down the hair of his
+cheek, changed its course to the eyebrow, and there hung glistening....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was apparent that the Dog-faced Man's thoughts must immediately be
+diverted into more cheerful channels.  "Won't you please read to me,
+Mr. Poddle," said the boy, "what it says in the paper about my mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The ruse was effective.  Mr. Poddle looked up with a start.  "Eh?" he
+ejaculated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Won't you?" the boy begged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I been talkin' so much, Richard," Mr. Poddle stammered, turning hoarse
+all at once, "that I gone and lost my voice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He decamped to his room across the hall without another word.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap05"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-064"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-064.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _At Midnight_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="226" HEIGHT="153">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>AT MIDNIGHT</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+At midnight the boy had long been sound asleep in bed.  The lamp was
+turned low.  It was very quiet in the room&mdash;quiet and shadowy in all
+the tenement....  And the stair creaked; and footfalls shuffled along
+the hall&mdash;and hesitated at the door of the place where the child lay
+quietly sleeping; and there ceased.  There was the rumble of a man's
+voice, deep, insistent, imperfectly restrained.  A woman protested.
+The door was softly opened; and the boy's mother stepped in, moving on
+tiptoe, and swiftly turned to bar entrance with her arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hist!" she whispered, angrily.  "Don't speak so loud.  You'll wake the
+boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me in, Millie," the man insisted.  "Aw, come on, now!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't, Jim.  You know I can't.  Go on home now.  Stop that!  I won't
+marry you.  Let go my arm.  You'll wake the boy, I tell you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a short scuffle: at the end of which, the woman's arm still
+barred the door.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Here I ain't seen you in three year," the man complained.  "And you
+won't let me in.  That ain't right, Millie.  It ain't kind to an old
+friend like me.  You didn't used to be that way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," the woman whispered, abstractedly; "there's been a change.  I
+ain't the same as I used to be."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You ain't changed for the better, Millie.  No, you ain't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," she mused.  "Sometimes I think not.  It ain't because I
+don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I
+don't let you in.  God knows, I like to meet old friends; but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was sufficient.  The man gently took her arm from the way.  He
+stepped in&mdash;glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded
+from the lamp&mdash;and turned again to the woman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't wake him!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were still standing.  The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad
+at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of
+feature&mdash;handsome enough, withal.  He was an acrobat.  Even in the dim
+light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength&mdash;of grace
+and agility.  For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body:
+then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy
+on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded
+him watchfully.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained.  "The boy
+knows me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But he don't like you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach.  "Come off!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I seen it in his eyes," she insisted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man softly laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed.  "You can't tell a mother what
+she sees in her own baby's eyes.  I tell you, Jim, he don't like you.
+He never did."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's all fancy, Millie.  Why, he ain't seen me in three year!  And
+you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid.  You're too
+fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly.  "What's got
+into you?  You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have
+you?  Don't you remember what you said to Dick that night?  You said
+Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember?  Remember the doctor
+coming to the hotel?  I'll never forget how you went on.  Never heard a
+woman swear like you before.  Never seen one go on like you went on.
+And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad
+for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him.
+Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what
+was coming.  You didn't want no kid, then!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't!" she gasped.  "I ain't forgot.  But I'm changed, Jim&mdash;since
+then."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He moved a step nearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring
+at the window, and through the window to the starry night.  "And Dick's
+dead, now.  I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of&mdash;different."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's gone and changed you, Millie?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ain't the same!" she repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's changed you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In the pause, he took her hand.  She seemed not to know it&mdash;but let it
+lie close held in his great palm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I can't," she answered.  "I don't think of myself no more.  And the
+boy&mdash;wouldn't like it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You always said you would, if it wasn't for Dick; and Dick ain't here
+no more.  There ain't no harm in loving me now."  He tried to draw her
+to him.  "Aw, come on!" he pleaded.  "You know you like me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She withdrew her hand&mdash;shrank from him.  "Don't!" she said.  "I like
+you, Jim.  You know I always did.  You was always good to me.  I never
+cared much for Dick.  Him and me teamed up pretty well.  That was all.
+It was always you, Jim, that I cared for.  But, somehow, now, I wish
+I'd loved Dick&mdash;more than I did.  I feel different, now.  I wish&mdash;oh, I
+wish&mdash;that I'd loved him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man frowned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's dead," she continued.  "I can't tell him nothing, now.  The
+chance is gone.  But I wish I'd loved him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He never done much for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, he did, Jim!" she answered, quickly.  "He done all a man can do
+for a woman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was smiling&mdash;but in an absent way.  The man started.  There was a
+light in her eyes he had never seen before.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He give me," she said, "the boy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're crazy about that kid," the man burst out, a violent, disgusted
+whisper.  "You're gone out of your mind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I ain't," she replied, doggedly.  "I'm different since I got him.
+That's all.  And I'd like Dick to know that I look at him different
+since he died.  I can't love Dick.  I never could.  But I could thank
+him if he was here.  Do you mind what I called the boy?  I don't call
+him Claud now.  I call him&mdash;Richard.  It's all I can do to show Dick
+that I'm grateful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man caught his breath&mdash;in angry impatience.   "Millie,"  he warned,
+"the boy'll grow up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put her hands to her eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He'll grow up and leave you.  What you going to do then?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," she sighed.  "Just&mdash;go along."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll be all alone, Millie."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He loves me!" she muttered.  "He'll never leave me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's got to, Millie.  He's got to be a man.  You can't keep him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe I <I>can't</I> keep him," she replied, in a passionate undertone.
+"Maybe I <I>do</I> love you.  Maybe he'd get to love you, too.  But look at
+him, Jim! See where he lies?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man turned towards the bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It's on my side, Jim!  Understand?  He lies there always till I come
+in.  Know why?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He watched her curiously.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He'll wake up, Jim, when I lift him over.  That's what he wants.
+He'll wake up and say, 'Is that you, mother?'  And he'll be asleep
+again, God bless him! before I can tell him that it is.  My God!  Jim,
+I can't tell you what it means to come in at night and find him lying
+there.  That little body of a man!  That clean, white soul! I can't
+tell you how I feel, Jim.  It's something a man can't know.  And do you
+think he'd stand for you?  He'd say he would.  Oh, he'd say he would!
+He'd look in my eyes, Jim, and he'd find out what I wanted him to say;
+and he'd <I>say</I> it.  But, Jim, he'd be hurt.  Understand?  He'd think I
+didn't love him any more.  He's only a child&mdash;and he'd think I didn't
+love him.  Where'd he sleep, Jim?  Alone?  He couldn't do it.  Don't
+you <I>see</I>?  I can't live with nobody, Jim.  And I don't want to.  I
+don't care for myself no more.  I used to, in them days&mdash;when you and
+me and Dick and the crowd was all together.  But I don't&mdash;no more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man stooped, picked a small stocking from the floor, stood staring
+at it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm changed," the woman repeated, "since I got the boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know what you'll do, Millie, when he grows up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She shook her head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And when he finds out?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That's what I'm afraid of," she whispered, hoarsely.  "Somebody'll
+tell him&mdash;some day.  He don't know, now.  And I don't want him to know.
+He ain't our kind.  Maybe it's because I keep him here alone.  Maybe
+it's because he don't see nobody.  Maybe it's just because I love him
+so.  I don't know.  But he ain't like us.  It would hurt him to know.
+And I can't hurt him.  I can't!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man tossed the stocking away.  It fell upon a heap of little
+under-garments, strewn upon the floor.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're a fool, Millie," said he.  "I tell you, he'll leave you.  He'll
+leave you cold&mdash;when he grows up&mdash;and another woman comes along."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She raised her hand to stop him.  "Don't say that!" she moaned.  "There
+won't be no other woman.  There can't be.  Seems to me I'll want to
+kill the first that comes.  A woman?  What woman?  There won't be none."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There's <I>got</I> to be a woman."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What woman?  There ain't a woman in the world fit to&mdash;oh," she broke
+off, "don't talk of <I>him</I>&mdash;and a woman!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It'll come, Millie.  He's a man&mdash;and there's got to be a woman.  And
+she won't want you.  And you'll be too old, then, to&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy stirred.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hist!" she commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They waited.  An arm was tossed&mdash;the boy smiled&mdash;there was a sigh.  He
+was sound asleep again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie!"  The man approached.  She straightened to resist him.  "You
+love me, don't you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She withdrew.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You want to marry me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still she withdrew; but he overtook her, and caught her hand.  She was
+now driven to a corner&mdash;at bay.  Her face was flushed; there was an
+irresolute light in her eyes&mdash;the light, too, of fear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go 'way!" she gasped.  "Leave me alone!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He put his arm about her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't!" she moaned.  "You'll wake the boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie!" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let me go, Jim!" she protested, weakly.  "I can't.  Oh, leave me
+alone!  You'll wake the boy.  I can't.  I'd like to.  I&mdash;I&mdash;I want to
+marry you; but I&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, come on!" he pleaded, drawing her close.  And he suddenly found
+her limp in his arms.  "You got to marry me!" he whispered, in triumph.
+"By God! you can't help yourself.  I got you!  I got you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, let me go!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I won't, Millie.  I'll never let you go."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For God's sake, Jim!  Jim&mdash;oh, don't kiss me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy stirred again&mdash;and began to mutter in his sleep.  At once the
+woman commanded herself.  She stiffened&mdash;released herself&mdash;pushed the
+man away.  She lifted a hand&mdash;until the child lay quiet once more.
+There was meantime breathless silence.  Then she pointed imperiously to
+the door.  The man sullenly held his place.  She tiptoed to the
+door&mdash;opened it; again imperiously gestured.  He would not stir.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll go," he whispered, "if you tell me I can come back."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy awoke&mdash;but was yet blinded by sleep; and the room was dim-lit.
+He rubbed his eyes.  The man and the woman stood rigid in the shadow.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it you, mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no resisting her command&mdash;her flashing eyes, the passionate
+gesture.  The man moved to the door, muttering that he would come
+back&mdash;and disappeared.  She closed the door after him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, dear," she answered.  "It is your mother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Was there a man with you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It was Lord Wychester," she said, brightly, "seeing me home from the
+party."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" he yawned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go to sleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fell asleep at once.  The stair creaked.  The tenement was again
+quiet....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+He was lying in his mother's place in the bed....  She looked out upon
+the river.  Somewhere, far below in the darkness, the current still ran
+swirling to the sea&mdash;where the lights go different ways....  The boy
+was lying in his mother's place.  And before she lifted him, she took
+his warm little hand, and kissed his brow, where the dark curls lay
+damp with the sweat of sleep.  For a long, long time, she sat watching
+him through a mist of glad tears.  The sight of his face, the outline
+of his body under the white coverlet, the touch of his warm flesh: all
+this thrilled her inexpressibly.  Had she been devout, she would have
+thanked God for the gift of a son&mdash;and would have found relief....
+When she crept in beside him, she drew him to her, tenderly still
+closer, until he was all contained in her arms; and she forgot all
+else&mdash;and fell asleep, untroubled.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-081"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-081.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _At Midnight_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="228" HEIGHT="78">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap06"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-082"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-082.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _A Meeting by Chance_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="225" HEIGHT="156">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>A MEETING BY CHANCE</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Came, then, into the lives of these two, to work wide and immediate
+changes, the Rev. John Fithian, a curate of the Church of the Lifted
+Cross&mdash;a tall, free-moving, delicately spare figure, clad in spotless
+black, with a hint of fashion about it, a dull gold crucifix lying
+suspended upon the breast: pale, long of face, the eye-sockets deep and
+shadowy; hollow-cheeked, the bones high and faintly touched with red;
+with black, straight, damp hair, brushed back from a smooth brow and
+falling in the perfection of neatness to the collar&mdash;the whole severe
+and forbidding, indeed, but for saving gray eyes, wherein there lurked,
+behind the patient agony, often displacing it, a tender smile,
+benignant, comprehending, infinitely sympathetic, by which the gloomy
+exterior was lightened and in some surprising way gratefully explained.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+By chance, on the first soft spring day of that year, the Rev. John
+Fithian, returning from the Neighbourhood Settlement, where he had
+delighted himself with good deeds, done of pure purpose, came near the
+door of the Box Street tenement, distributing smiles, pennies,
+impulsive, genuine caresses, to the children as he went, tipping their
+faces, patting their heads, all in the rare, unquestioned way, being
+not alien to the manner of the poor.  A street piano, at the corner,
+tinkled an air to which a throng of ragged, lean little girls danced in
+the yellow sunshine, dodging trucks and idlers and impatient
+pedestrians with unconcern, colliding and tripping with utmost good
+nature.  The curate was arrested by the voice of a child, singing to
+the corner accompaniment&mdash;low, in the beginning, brooding, tentative,
+but in a moment rising sure and clear and tender.  It was not hard for
+the Rev. John Fithian to slip a cassock and surplice upon this wistful
+child, to give him a background of lofty arches and stained windows, to
+frame the whole in shadows.  And, lo! in the chancel of the Church of
+the Lifted Cross there stood an angel, singing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy looked up, a glance of suspicion, of fear; but he was at once
+reassured: there was no guile in the smiling gray eyes of the
+questioner.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am waiting," he answered, "for my mother.  She will be home soon."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a swift, penetrating glance, darting far and deep, dwelling briefly,
+the curate discovered the pathos of the child's life&mdash;the unknowing,
+patient outlook, the vague sense of pain, the bewilderment, the wistful
+melancholy, the hopeful determination.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You, too!" he sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The expression of kindred was not comprehended; but the boy was not
+disquieted by the sigh, by the sudden extinguishment of the beguiling
+smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She has gone," he continued, "to the wedding of Sir Arthur Coll and
+Miss Stillison.  She will have a very good time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The curate came to himself with a start and a gasp.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's a bridesmaid," the boy added.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" ejaculated the curate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why do you say, 'Oh!'" the boy complained, frowning.  "Everybody says
+that," he went on, wistfully; "and I don't know why."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The curate was a gentleman&mdash;acute and courteous.  "A touch of
+indigestion," he answered, promptly, laying a white hand on his black
+waistcoat.  "Oh!  There it is again!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Stomach ache?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, you might call it that."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy was much concerned.  "If you come up-stairs," said he,
+anxiously, "I'll give you some medicine.  Mother keeps it for me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Thus, presently, the curate found himself top-floor rear, in the room
+that overlooked the broad river, the roofs of the city beyond, the
+misty hills: upon which the fading sunshine now fell.  And having
+gratefully swallowed the dose, with a broad, persistent smile, he was
+given a seat by the window, that the beauty of the day, the
+companionship of the tiny craft on the river, the mystery of the
+far-off places, might distract and comfort him.  From the boy, sitting
+upright and prim on the extreme edge of a chair, his feet on the rung,
+his hands on his knees, proceeded a stream of amiable chatter&mdash;not the
+less amiable for being grave&mdash;to which the curate, compelled to his
+best behavior, listened with attention as amiable, as grave: and this
+concerned the boats, afloat below, the lights on the river, the child's
+mother, the simple happenings of his secluded life.  So untaught was
+this courtesy, spontaneous, native&mdash;so did it spring from natural wish
+and perception&mdash;that the curate was soon more mystified than
+entertained; and so did the curate's smile increase in gratification
+and sympathy that the child was presently off the chair, lingering half
+abashed in the curate's neighbourhood, soon seated familiarly upon his
+knee, toying with the dull gold crucifix.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's this?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is the symbol," the curate answered, "of the sacrifice of our dear
+Lord and Saviour."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no meaning in the words; but the boy held the cross very
+tenderly, and looked long upon the face of the Man there in
+torture&mdash;and was grieved and awed by the agony....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+In the midst of this, the boy's mother entered.  She stopped dead
+beyond the threshold&mdash;warned by the unexpected presence to be upon her
+guard.  Her look of amazement changed to a scowl of suspicion.  The
+curate put the boy from his knee.  He rose&mdash;embarrassed.  There was a
+space of ominous silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What you doing here?" the woman demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Trespassing."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was puzzled&mdash;by the word, the smile, the quiet voice.  The whole
+was a new, nonplussing experience.  Her suspicion was aggravated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What you been telling the boy?  Eh?  What you been saying about me?
+Hear me?  Ain't you got no tongue?"  She turned to the frightened
+child.  "Richard," she continued, her voice losing all its quality of
+anger, "what lies has this man been telling you about your poor mother?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy kept a bewildered silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What you been lying about?" the woman exclaimed, advancing upon the
+curate, her eyes blazing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I have been telling," he answered, still gravely smiling, "the truth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her anger was halted&mdash;but she was not pacified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Telling," the curate repeated, with a little pause, "the truth."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You been talking about <I>me</I>, eh?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No; it was of your late husband."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She started.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross," the curate
+continued, with unruffled composure, "and I have been telling the exact
+truth concerning&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You been lying!" the woman broke in.  "Yes, you have!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No&mdash;not so," he insisted.  "The exact truth concerning the funeral of
+Dick Slade from the Church of the Lilted Cross.  Your son has told me
+of his father's death&mdash;of the funeral, And I have told your son that I
+distinctly remember the occasion.  I have told him, moreover," he
+added, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes faintly
+twinkling, "that his father was&mdash;ah&mdash;as I recall him&mdash;of most
+distinguished appearance."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was completely disarmed.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+When, after an agreeable interval, the Rev. John Fithian took his
+leave, the boy's mother followed him from the room, and closed the door
+upon the boy.  "I'm glad," she faltered, "that you didn't give me away.
+It was&mdash;kind.  But I'm sorry you lied&mdash;like that.  You didn't have to,
+you know.  He's only a child.  It's easy to fool him.  <I>You</I> wouldn't
+have to lie.  But I <I>got</I> to lie.  It makes him happy&mdash;and there's
+things he mustn't know.  He <I>must</I> be happy.  I can't stand it when he
+ain't.  It hurts me so.  But," she added, looking straight into his
+eyes, gratefully, "you didn't have to lie.  And&mdash;it was kind."  Her
+eyes fell.  "It was&mdash;awful kind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I may come again?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She stared at the floor.  "Come again?" she muttered.  "I don't know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I should very much like to come."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What do you want?" she asked, looking up.  "It ain't <I>me</I>, is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The curate shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, what do you want?  I thought you was from the Society.  I
+thought you was an agent come to take him away because I wasn't fit to
+keep him.  But it ain't that.  And it ain't <I>me</I>.  What is it you want,
+anyhow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"To come again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She turned away.  He patiently waited.  All at once she looked into his
+eyes, long, deep, intensely&mdash;a scrutiny of his very soul.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You got a good name to keep, ain't you?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," he answered.  "And you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It don't matter about me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I may come?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she whispered.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap07"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-094"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-094.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _Renunciation_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="229" HEIGHT="160">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>RENUNCIATION</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street
+tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the
+intimacy to extend&mdash;not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr.
+Poddle.  It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind,
+blowing in from the sea.  Most the curate came at evening, when the
+breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the
+gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities,
+not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and
+beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the
+hours with wonder and strange delight.  Sometimes, the boy sang&mdash;his
+mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly.
+And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to
+the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless
+lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I want the boy's voice," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She gave no sign of agitation.  "His voice?" she asked, quietly.
+"Ain't the boy's <I>self</I> nothing to your church?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not," he answered, "to the church."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not to you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lifted his eyebrows&mdash;in amazed comprehension.  "I must say, then,"
+he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The boy," she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+For a little while she was silent&mdash;vacantly contemplating the bare
+floor.  There had been no revelation.  She was not taken unaware.  She
+had watched his purpose form.  Long before, she had perceived the issue
+approaching, and had bravely met it.  But it was all now definite and
+near.  She found it hard to command her feeling&mdash;bitter to cut the
+trammels of her love for the child.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up.  "Boy sopranos is
+scarce.  You can't have him cheap."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Of course!" he hastened to say.  "The church will pay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Money?  It ain't money I want."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To this there was nothing to say.  The curate was in the dark&mdash;and
+quietly awaited enlightenment.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take him!" she burst out, rising.  "My God! just you take him.  That's
+all I want.  Understand me?  I want to get rid of him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He watched her in amazement.  For a time she wandered about the room,
+distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her
+hand over her eyes&mdash;a gesture of weariness and despair.  Then she faced
+him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take him," she said, her voice hoarse.  "Take him away from me.  I
+ain't fit to have him.  Understand?  He's got to grow up into a man.
+And I can't teach him how.  Take him.  Take him altogether.  Make
+him&mdash;like yourself.  Before you come," she proceeded, now feverishly
+pacing the floor, "I never knew that men was good.  No man ever looked
+in my eyes the way you do.  I know them&mdash;oh, I know them! And when my
+boy grows up, I want him to look in the eyes of women the way you
+look&mdash;in mine.  Just that!  Only that!  If only, oh, if only my son
+will look in the eyes of women the way you look in mine!  Understand?
+I <I>want</I> him to.  But I can't teach him how.  I don't know enough.  I
+ain't good enough."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The curate rose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can't take his voice and leave his soul," she went on.  "You got
+to take his soul.  You got to make it&mdash;like your own."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not like mine!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just," she said, passionately, "like yours.  Don't you warn me!" she
+flashed.  "I know the difference between your soul and mine.  I know
+that when his soul is like yours he won't love me no more.  But I can't
+help that.  I got to do without him.  I got to live my life&mdash;and let
+him live his.  It's the way with mothers and sons.  God help the
+mothers!  It's the way of the world....  And he'll go with you," she
+added.  "I'll get him so he'll be glad to go.  It won't be nice to
+do&mdash;but I can do it.  Maybe you think I can't.  Maybe you think I love
+him too much.  It ain't that I love him too much.  It's because I love
+him <I>enough</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You offer the boy to me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you take him&mdash;voice and soul?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I will take him," said the curate, "soul and voice."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She began at once to practice upon the boy's love for her&mdash;this
+skillfully, persistently: without pity for herself or him.  She sighed,
+wept, sat gloomy for hours together: nor would she explain her sorrow,
+but relentlessly left it to deal with his imagination, by which it was
+magnified and touched with the horror of mystery.  It was not
+hard&mdash;thus to feign sadness, terror, despair: to hint misfortune,
+parting, unalterable love.  Nor could the boy withstand it; by this
+depression he was soon reduced to a condition of apprehension and grief
+wherein self-sacrifice was at one with joyful opportunity.  Dark days,
+these&mdash;hours of agony, premonition, fearful expectation.  And when they
+had sufficiently wrought upon him, she was ready to proceed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+One night she took him in her lap, in the old close way, in which he
+loved to be held, and sat rocking, for a time, silently.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us talk, dear," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think I'm too sick," he sighed.  "I just want to lie here&mdash;and not
+talk."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He had but expressed her own desire&mdash;to have him lie there: not to
+talk, but just to feel him lying in her arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"We must," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Something in her voice&mdash;something distinguishable from the recent days
+as deep and real&mdash;aroused the boy.  He touched the lashes of her
+eyes&mdash;and found them wet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why are you crying?" he asked.  "Oh, tell me, mother!  Tell me <I>now</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not answer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sick," he muttered.  "I&mdash;I&mdash;think I'm very sick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Something has happened, dear," she said.  "I'm going to tell you
+what."  She paused&mdash;and in the pause felt his body grow tense in a
+familiar way.  For a moment the prospect frightened her.  She felt,
+vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely
+delicate&mdash;which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate.
+"You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich.
+But we're not, any more."  It was a poor lie&mdash;she realized that: and
+was half ashamed.  "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly.  "A
+man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds
+and lovely dresses.  She hasn't anything&mdash;any more."  She had conceived
+a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed
+thing&mdash;but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet
+doubted her.  "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly.
+"She will have to stop having good times, I guess.  She will have to go
+to work."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He straightened in her lap.  "No, no!" he cried, gladly.  "<I>I'll</I> work!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant
+consciousness of his love&mdash;to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out
+with pain.  But she restrained all this&mdash;harshly, pitilessly.  She had
+no mercy upon herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll work!" he repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How?" she asked.  "You don't know how."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Teach me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed&mdash;an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him.
+"Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes; but&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But what?  Tell me quick, mother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy.  Anyhow, dear," she
+continued, "I would have to work.  We are very poor.  You see, dear, it
+takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you.  And, then,
+dear, you see&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He waited&mdash;somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice.  It
+was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You see," she gasped, "you eat&mdash;quite a bit."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll not eat much," he promised.  "And I'll not want new clothes.  And
+it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She would not agree.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tell me!" he commanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you come, too?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," she answered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not yet comprehend.  "Would I go&mdash;alone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All alone?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Alone!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Quiet fell upon all the world&mdash;in the twilighted room, in the tenement,
+in the falling night without, where no breeze moved.  The child sought
+to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom&mdash;then
+stirred no more.  The lights were flashing into life on the
+river&mdash;wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea....  Some one
+stumbled past the door&mdash;grumbling maudlin wrath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"There is no other way," the mother said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no response&mdash;a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I would go to see you&mdash;quite often."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do
+without me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a crucial question&mdash;so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly
+portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution
+departed.  What would she do without him?  God knew! But she commanded
+herself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would not have to work," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned her face to the light&mdash;looked deep in her eyes, searching for
+the truth.  She met his glance without wavering.  Then, discerning the
+effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and
+concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most
+poignant, she lied.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I would be happier," she said, "without you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A moan escaped him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He fell back upon her bosom....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+There was no delay.  'Twas all done in haste.  The night came.  Gently
+the curate took the child from her arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered.  "I am not crying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye, dear."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother, I am not crying."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish.  "Good-bye.  Be a
+good boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took the curate's hand.  They moved to the door&mdash;but there turned
+and lingered.  While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling
+a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his
+eyes, against his will, some reproach.  Perceiving this, she staggered
+towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there
+stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying.  Then she levelled a
+finger at the curate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-109"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-109.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _Renunciation_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="237" HEIGHT="138">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap08"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-110"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-110.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _In the Current_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="229" HEIGHT="156">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>IN THE CURRENT</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Seven o'clock struck.  It made no impression upon her.  Eight
+o'clock&mdash;nine o'clock.  It was now dark.  Ten o'clock.  She did not
+hear.  Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in
+her hand, she kept watch on the river&mdash;but did not see the river: but
+saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart.
+Eleven o'clock.  Ghostly moonlight filled the room.  The tenement,
+restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep.  Twelve
+o'clock.  She had not moved: nor dared she move.  There was a knock at
+the door&mdash;a quick step behind her.  She turned in alarm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rose.  Voice and figure were well known to her.  She started
+forward&mdash;but stopped dead.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, Millie.  It's me&mdash;come back.  You don't feel the way you did
+before, do you, girl?"  He suddenly subdued his voice&mdash;as though
+recollecting a caution.  "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he
+asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Go 'way!" she complained.  "Leave me alone."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He came nearer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Give me a show, Jim," she begged.  "Go 'way.  It ain't fair to
+come&mdash;now.  Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer
+approach, her voice rising shrilly.  "It ain't fair&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hist!" he interrupted.  "You'll wake the&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed harshly.  "Wake what?" she mocked.  "Eh, Jim?  What'll I
+wake?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed.  "You'll wake the boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Boy!" she laughed.  "What boy?  There ain't no boy.  Look here!" she
+cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet,
+wildly tossing the pillows to the floor.  "What'll I wake?  Eh, Jim?
+Where's the boy I'll wake?"  She turned upon him.  "What you saying
+'Hist!' for?  Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh.  "Talk as loud as you
+like, Jim.  You don't need to care what you say or how you say it.
+There ain't nobody here to mind you.  For I tell you," she stormed,
+"there ain't no boy&mdash;no more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He caught her hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let go my hand!" she commanded.  "Keep off, Jim!  I ain't in no temper
+to stand it&mdash;to-night."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He withdrew.  "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dead?" she laughed.  "No.  I give him away.  He was different from us.
+I didn't have no right to keep him.  I give him to a parson.  Because,"
+she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up.  And he ain't here
+no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room.  "I'm all
+alone&mdash;now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poor girl!" he muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was tempted by this sympathy.  "Go home, Jim," she said.  "It ain't
+fair to stay.  I'm all alone, now&mdash;and it ain't treating me right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She flung out her arms&mdash;in dissent and hopelessness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, you ain't," he continued.  "You've give him up.  You're all alone.
+You can't go on&mdash;alone.  Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want
+you.  Come to me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She wavered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended.
+"You're all alone.  You've lost him.  Come to me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Lost him?" she mused.  "No&mdash;not that.  If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take
+you.  If ever he looked in my eyes&mdash;as if I'd lost him&mdash;I'd take you.
+I've give him up; but I ain't lost him.  Maybe," she proceeded,
+eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up.  He loves me, Jim;
+he'll not forget.  I know he's different from us.  You can't tell a
+mother nothing about such things as that.  God!" she muttered, clasping
+her hands, "how strangely different he is.  And every day he'll change.
+Every day he'll be&mdash;more different.  That's what I want.  That's why I
+give him up.  To make him&mdash;more different!  But maybe," she continued,
+her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up,
+and the time comes&mdash;maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more
+different&mdash;maybe, when I go to him, man grown&mdash;are you
+listening?&mdash;maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember!
+Maybe, he'll take me in.  Lost him?" she asked.  "How do you know that?
+Go to you, Jim?  Go to you, now&mdash;when he might take me in if I wait?  I
+can't! Don't you understand?  When the time comes, he might ask
+me&mdash;where you was."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested.  "You're just plain crazy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Crazy?  Maybe, I am.  To love and hope!  Crazy?  Maybe, I am.  But,
+Jim, mothers is all that way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Keep back!" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I won't."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll make a cat of me.  I warn you, Jim!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You can't keep me off.  You said you loved me.  You do love me.  You
+can't help yourself.  You got to marry me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She retreated.  "Leave me alone!" she screamed.  "I can't.  Don't you
+see how it is?  Quit that, now, Jim!  You ain't fair.  Take your arms
+away.  God help me!  I love you, you great big brute!  You know I do.
+You ain't fair....  Stop!  You hurt me."  She was now in his arms&mdash;but
+still resisting.  "Leave me alone,"  she whimpered.  "You hurt me.  You
+ain't fair.  You know I love you&mdash;and you ain't fair....  Oh, God
+forgive me!  Don't do that again, Jim.  Stop!  Let me go.  For God's
+sake, stop kissing me!  I like you, Jim.  I ain't denying that.  But
+let me go....  Please, Jim!  Don't hold me so tight.  It ain't fair....
+Oh, it ain't fair...."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless&mdash;bitterly
+sobbing.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still she sobbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly.  "It's all right.  I
+won't hurt you.  You love me, and I love you.  That's all right,
+Millie.  What's the matter with you, girl?  Lift your face, won't you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, no!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not, Millie?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know," she whispered.  "I think I'm&mdash;ashamed."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no longer need to hold her fast.  His arms relaxed.  She did
+not move from them.  And while they stood thus, in the moonlight,
+falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring,
+the while, all the reassuring words at his command.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The boy's gone," he said, at last.  "You'd be all alone without me.
+He ain't here.  But he's well looked after, Millie.  Don't you fret
+about him.  By this time he's sound asleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She slipped from his embrace.  He made no effort to detain her:
+conceiving her secure in his possession.  A moment she stood staring at
+the floor, lost to her surroundings: then quickly turned to look upon
+him&mdash;her face aglow with some high tenderness.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Asleep?" she asked, her voice low, tremulous.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sound asleep."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How do you know that he's asleep?" she pursued.  "Asleep?  No; he
+ain't asleep."  She paused&mdash;now woebegone.  "He's wide awake&mdash;waiting,"
+she went on.  "He's waiting&mdash;just like he used to do&mdash;for me to come
+in....  He's awake.  Oh, sore little heart!  He's lying alone in the
+dark&mdash;waiting.  And his mother will not come....  Last night, Jim, when
+I come in, he was there in the bed, awake and waiting.  'Oh, mother,'
+says he, 'I'm glad you're come at last.  I been waiting so long.  It's
+lonesome here in the dark without you.  And to-morrow I'll wake, and
+wait, and wait; but you will not come!'  He's awake, Jim.  Don't you
+tell me no different.  The pillow's wet with his tears....  Lonely
+child&mdash;waiting for me!  Oh, little heart of my baby!  Oh, sore little
+heart!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It ain't no use no more, Jim.  You better go home.  I'm all alone.  My
+child's not here.  But&mdash;he's somewhere.  And it's him I love."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man sighed and went away....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Left alone, she put the little room in order and made the bed, blinded
+by tears, her steps uncertain: muttering incoherently of her child,
+whimpering broken snatches of lullaby songs.  When there was no more
+work left for her hands to do, she staggered to the bureau, and from
+the lower drawer took a great, flaunting doll, which she had there
+kept, poor soul! against the time when her arms would be empty, her
+bosom aching for a familiar weight upon it.  And for a time she sat
+rocking the cold counterfeit, crooning, faintly singing, caressing it;
+but she had known the warmth, the sweet restlessness, the soft,
+yielding form of the living child, and could not be content.
+Presently, in a surge of disgust, she flung the substitute violently
+from her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It ain't no baby," she moaned, putting her hands to her face.  "It's
+only a doll!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sank limp to the floor.  There she lay prone&mdash;the moonlight falling
+softly upon her, but healing her not at all.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-122"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-122.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _In the Current_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="246" HEIGHT="160">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap09"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-123"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-123.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _The Chorister_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="231" HEIGHT="158">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>THE CHORISTER</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The Rev. John Fithian lived alone with a man-servant in a
+wide-windowed, sombre, red old house, elbowed by tenements, near the
+Church of the Lifted Cross&mdash;once a fashionable quarter: now mean,
+dejected, incongruously thronged, and fast losing the last appearances
+of respectability.  Sombre without&mdash;half-lit, silent, vast within: the
+whole intolerant of frivolity, inharmony, garishness, ugliness, but yet
+quite free of gloom and ghostly suggestion.  The boy tiptoed over the
+thick carpets, spoke in whispers, eyed the shadowy corners&mdash;sensitive
+to impressions, forever alert: nevertheless possessing a fine feeling
+of security and hopefulness; still wistful, often weeping in the night,
+but not melancholy.  Responsive to environment, by nature harmonious
+with his new surroundings, he presently moved through the lofty old
+rooms with a manner reflecting their own&mdash;the same gravity, serenity,
+old-fashioned grace: expressing even their stateliness in a quaint and
+childish way.  Thus was the soil of his heart prepared for the seed of
+a great change.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+By and by the curate enlightened the child concerning sin and the
+Vicarious Sacrifice.  This was when the leaves were falling from the
+trees in the park&mdash;a drear, dark night: the wind sweeping the streets
+in violent gusts, the rain lashing the windowpanes.  Night had come
+unnoticed&mdash;swiftly, intensely: in the curate's study a change from gray
+twilight to firelit shadows.  The boy was squatted on the hearth-rug,
+disquieted by the malicious beating at the window, glad to be in the
+glow of the fire: his visions all of ragged men and women cowering from
+the weather.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It is time, now," the curate sighed, "that I told you the story."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What story?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The story of the Man who died for us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy turned&mdash;in wonderment.  "I did not know," he said, quickly,
+"that a man had died for us.  What was his name?  Why did he do it?  My
+mother never told me that story."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think she does not know it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then I'll tell her when I learn."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perhaps," said the curate, "she will like to hear it&mdash;from you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Very gently, then, in his deep, mellifluous voice&mdash;while the rain beat
+upon the windows, crying out the sorrows of the poor&mdash;the curate
+unfolded the poignant story: the terms simple, the recital clear,
+vivid, complete....  And to the heart of this child the appeal was
+immediate and irresistible.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And they who sin," the curate concluded, "crucify Him again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I love that Jesus!" the boy sobbed.  "I love Him&mdash;almost as much as
+mother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Almost?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy misunderstood.  He felt reproved.  He flushed&mdash;ashamed that the
+new love had menaced the old.  "No," he answered; "but I love Him very
+much."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not as much?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, I could not!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy was never afterwards the same.  All that was inharmonious in
+life&mdash;the pain and poverty and unloveliness&mdash;became as sin: a
+continuous crucifixion, hateful, wringing the heart....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Late in the night, when he lay sleepless, sick for his mother's
+presence, her voice, her kisses, her soothing touch, the boy would rise
+to sit at the window&mdash;there to watch shadowy figures flit through the
+street-lamp's circle of light.  Once he fancied that his mother came
+thus out of the night, that for a moment she paused with upturned
+glance, then disappeared in woe and haste: returning, halted again; but
+came no more....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+At rare intervals the boy's mother came to the curate's door.  She
+would not enter: but timidly waited for her son, and then went with him
+to the park, relieved to be away from the wide, still house, her
+spirits and self-confidence reviving with every step.  One mellow
+evening, while they sat together in the dusk, an ill-clad man, gray and
+unkempt, shuffled near.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother," the boy whispered, gripping her hand, "he is looking at us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed.  "Let him look!" said she.  "It don't matter."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man staggered to the bench&mdash;heavily sat down: limp and shameless,
+his head hanging.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us go away!" the boy pleaded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why, darling?" his mother asked, puzzled.  "What's the matter with
+you, anyhow?"  She looked at him&mdash;realizing some subtle change in him,
+bewildered by it: searching eagerly for the nature and cause.  "You
+didn't used to be like that," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't like him.  He's wicked.  He frightens me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man slipped suddenly from the bench&mdash;sprawling upon the walk.  The
+woman laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't laugh!" the boy exclaimed&mdash;a cry of reproach, not free of
+indignation.  "Oh, mother," he complained, putting her hand to his
+cheek, "how could you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not answer.  The derelict picked himself up, whining in a
+maudlin way.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How could you!" the boy repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," said she, lightly, "he's all right.  He won't hurt us."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's wicked!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's drunk.  It don't matter.  What's come over you, dear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm afraid," said the boy.  "He's sinful."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He's only drunk, poor man!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+High over the houses beyond, the steeple of the Church of the Lifted
+Cross pierced the blue-black sky.  It was tipped with a blazing
+cross&mdash;a great cross, flaming in the night: a symbol of sacrifice, a
+hope, a protest, raised above the feverish world.  To this the boy
+looked.  It transported him far from the woman whose hand he clutched.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They who sin," he muttered, his eyes still turned to the lifted cross,
+"crucify the dear Lord again!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His mother was both mystified and appalled.  She followed his
+glance&mdash;but saw only the familiar landmark: an illuminated cross,
+topping a steeple.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"For God's sake, Richard!" she demanded, "what you talking about?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He did not hear.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You ain't sick, are you?" she continued.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He shook his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's the matter with you?" she implored.  "Oh, tell your mother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He loosened his hand from her clasp, withdrew it: but instantly caught
+her hand again, and kissed it passionately.  So much concerned was she
+for his physical health that the momentary shrinking escaped her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're sick," she said.  "I know you are.  You're singing too much in
+the church."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then you're eating too much lemon pie," she declared, anxiously.
+"You're too fond of that.  It upsets your stomach.  Oh, Richard!
+Shame, dear!  I told you not to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You told me not to eat <I>much</I>," he said.  "So I don't eat any&mdash;to make
+sure."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was aware of the significance of this sacrifice&mdash;and kissed him
+quickly in fond approval.  Then she turned up his coat-sleeve.  "The
+fool!" she cried.  "You got cold.  That's what's the matter with you.
+Here it is November!  And he ain't put your flannels on.  That there
+curate," she concluded, in disgust, "don't know nothing about raising a
+boy."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm quite well, mother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then what's the matter with you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sad!" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She caught him to her breast&mdash;blindly misconceiving the meaning of
+this: in her ignorance concluding that he longed for her, and was sick
+because of that....  And while she held him close, the clock of the
+Church of the Lifted Cross chimed seven.  In haste she put him down,
+kissed him, set him on his homeward way; and she watched him until he
+was lost in the dusk and distance of the park.  Then, concerned,
+bewildered, she made haste to that quarter of the city&mdash;that swarming,
+flaring, blatant place&mdash;where lay her occupation for the night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Near Christmas, in a burst of snowy weather, the boy sang his first
+solo at the Church of the Lifted Cross: this at evening.  His mother,
+conspicuously gowned, somewhat overcome by the fashion of the place,
+which she had striven to imitate&mdash;momentarily chagrined by her
+inexplicable failure to be in harmony&mdash;seated herself obscurely, where
+she had but an infrequent glimpse of his white robe, wistful face,
+dark, curling hair.  She had never loved him more proudly&mdash;never before
+realized that his value extended beyond the region of her arms: never
+before known that the babe, the child, the growing boy, mothered by
+her, nursed at her breast, her possession, was a gift to the world,
+sweet and inspiring.  "Angels, ever bright and fair!"  She felt the
+thrill of his tender voice; perceived the impression: the buzz, the
+subsiding confusion, the spell-bound stillness.  "Take, oh, take me to
+your care!"  It was in her heart to strike her breasts&mdash;to cry out that
+this was her son, born of her; her bosom his place....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+When the departing throng had thinned in the aisle, she stepped from
+the pew, and stood waiting.  There passed, then, a lady in rich
+attire&mdash;sweet-faced, of exquisite manner.  A bluff, ruddy young man
+attended her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you like the music?" he asked&mdash;a conventional question: everywhere
+repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Perfectly lovely!" she replied.  "A wonderful voice!  And such a
+pretty child!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wonder," said he, "who the boy can be?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Acting upon ingenuous impulse, the boy's mother overtook the man,
+timidly touched his elbow, looked into his eyes, her own bright with
+proud love.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He is my son," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The lady turned in amazement.  In a brief, appraising glance, she
+comprehended the whole woman; the outré gown, the pencilled eyebrows,
+the rouged cheeks, the bleached hair.  She took the man's arm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man yielded.  He bowed&mdash;smiled in an embarrassed way, flushing to
+his sandy hair: turned his back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"How strange!" the lady whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The woman was left alone in the aisle&mdash;not chagrined by the rebuff,
+being used to this attitude, sensitive no longer: but now knowing, for
+the first time, that the world into which her child had gone would not
+accept her....  The church was empty.  The organ had ceased.  One by
+one the twinkling lights were going out.  The boy came bounding down
+the aisle.  With a glad little cry he leaped into her waiting arms....
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-137"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-137.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _The Chorister_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="244" HEIGHT="140">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap10"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-138"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-138.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _Alienation_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="154">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>ALIENATION</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+This night, after a week of impatient expectation, they were by the
+curate's permission to spend together in the Box Street tenement.  It
+was the boy's first return to the little room overlooking the river.
+Thither they hurried through the driving snow, leaning to the blasts,
+unconscious of the bitterness of the night: the twain in high
+spirits&mdash;the boy chattering, merrily, incoherently, as he trotted at
+his silent mother's side.  Very happy, now, indeed, they raced up the
+stair, rioting up flight after flight, to top floor rear, where there
+was a cheery fire, a kettle bubbling on the stove, a lamp turned low&mdash;a
+feeling of warmth and repose and welcome, which the broad window,
+noisily shaken by a hearty winter wind from the sea, pleasantly
+accentuated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The gladness of this return, the sudden, overwhelming realization of a
+longing that had been agonizing in its intensity, excited the boy
+beyond bounds.  He gave an indubitable whoop of joy, which so startled
+and amazed the woman that she stared open-mouthed; tossed his cap in
+the air, flung his overcoat and gloves on the floor, peeped through the
+black window-panes, pried into the cupboard, hugged his mother so
+rapturously, so embarrassingly, that he tumbled her over and was
+himself involved in the hilarious collapse: whereupon, as a measure of
+protection while she laid the table, she despatched him across the hall
+to greet Mr. Poddle, who was ill abed, anxiously awaiting him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dog-faced Man was all prinked for the occasion&mdash;his hirsute
+adornment neatly brushed and braided, smoothly parted from crown over
+brow and nose to chin: so that, though, to be sure, his appearance
+instantly suggested a porcupine, his sensitive lips and mild gray eyes
+were for once allowed to impress the beholder.  The air of Hockley's
+Musee had at last laid him by the heels.  No longer, by any license of
+metaphor, could his lungs be said to be merely restless.  He was flat
+on his back&mdash;white, wan, gasping: sweat dampening the hair on his brow.
+But he bravely chirked up when the child entered, subdued and pitiful;
+and though, in response to a glance of pain and concern, his eyes
+overran with the weak tears of the sick, he smiled like a man to whom
+Nature had not been cruel, while he pressed the small hand so swiftly
+extended.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm sick, Richard," he whispered.  "'Death No Respecter of Persons.'
+Git me?  'High and Low Took By the Grim Reaper.'  I'm awful sick."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy, now seated on the bed, still holding the ghastly hand, hoped
+that Mr. Poddle would soon be well.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," said the Dog-faced Man.  "I won't.  'Climax of a Notable Career.'
+Git me?  It wouldn't&mdash;be proper."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Not proper?
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Richard.  It really wouldn't be proper.  'Dignified in Death.'
+Understand?  Distinguished men has their limits.  'Outlived His Fame.'
+I really couldn't stand it.  Git me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not&mdash;quite."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Guess I'll have to tell you.  Look!"  The Dog-faced Man held up his
+hand&mdash;but swiftly replaced it between the child's warm, sympathetic
+palms.  "No rings.  Understand?  'Pawned the Family Jewells.'  Git me?
+'Reduced to Poverty.'  Where's my frock coat?  Where's my silk hat?
+'Wardrobe of a Celebrity Sold For A Song.'  Where's them two pair of
+trousers?  'A Tragic Disappearance.'  All up the spout.  Everything
+gone.  'Not a Stitch to His Name.'  Really, Richard, it wouldn't be
+proper to get well.  A natural phenomenon of my standing
+couldn't&mdash;simply <I>couldn't</I>, Richard&mdash;go back to the profession with a
+wardrobe consistin' of two pink night-shirts, both the worse for wear.
+It wouldn't <I>do</I>!  On the Stage In Scant Attire.'  I couldn't stand it.
+'Fell From His High Estate.'  It would break my heart."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+No word of comfort occurred to the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"So," sighed the Dog-faced Man,  "I guess I better die.  And the
+quicker the better."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To change the distressful drift of the conversation, the boy inquired
+concerning the Mexican Sword Swallower.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush!" implored Mr. Poddle, in a way so poignant that the boy wished
+he had been more discreet.  "Them massive proportions!  Them socks!
+'Her Fate a Tattooed Man,'" he pursued, in gentle melancholy.  "Don't
+ask me!  'Nearing the Fateful Hour.'  Poor child!'  Wedded To A
+Artificial Freak.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is she married?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No&mdash;not yet," Mr. Poddle explained.  "But when the dragon's tail is
+finished, accordin' to undenigeable report, the deed will be did.
+'Shackled For Life.'  Oh, my God!  He's borrowed the money to pay the
+last installment; and I'm informed that only the scales has to be
+picked out with red.  But why should I mourn?" he asked.  "'Adored From
+Afar.'  Understand?  That's what I got to do.  'His Love a Tragedy.'
+Oh, Richard," Mr. Poddle concluded, in genuine distress, "that's me!
+It couldn't be nothing else.  Natural phenomens is natural phenomens.
+'Paid the Penalty of Genius.'  That's me!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy's mother called to him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, abruptly, "I'm awful sick.  I can't last
+much longer.  Git me?  I'm dyin'.  And I'm poor.  I ain't got a cent.
+I'm forgot by the public.  I'm all alone in the world.  Nobody owes me
+no kindness."  He clutched the boy's hand.  "Know who pays my rent?
+Know who feeds me?  Know who brings the doctor when I vomit blood?
+Know who sits with me in the night&mdash;when I can't sleep?  Know who
+watches over me?  Who comforts me?  Who holds my hand when I git afraid
+to die?  Know who that is, Richard?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," the boy whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who is it?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My mother!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes&mdash;your mother," said the Dog-faced Man.  He lifted himself on the
+pillow.  "Richard," he  continued, "listen to me!  I'll be dead, soon,
+and then I can't talk to you no more.  I can't say no word to you from
+the grave&mdash;when the time she dreads has come.  Listen to me!"  His
+voice rose.  He was breathing in gasps.  There was a light in his eyes.
+"It is your mother.  There ain't a better woman in all the world.
+Listen to me! Don't you forget her.  She loves you.  You're all she's
+got.  Her poor heart is hungry for you.  Don't you forget her.  There
+ain't a better woman nowhere.  There ain't a woman more fit for heaven.
+Don't you go back on her!  Don't you let no black-and-white curick
+teach you no different!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll not forget!" said the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle laid a hand on his head.  "God bless you, Richard!" said he.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy kissed him, unafraid of his monstrous countenance&mdash;and then
+fled to his mother....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+For a long time the Dog-faced Man lay alone, listening to the voices
+across the hall: himself smiling to know that the woman had her son
+again; not selfishly reluctant to be thus abandoned.  The door was
+ajar.  Joyous sounds drifted in&mdash;chatter, soft laughter, the rattle of
+dishes....  Presently, silence: broken by the creaking of the
+rocking-chair, and by low singing....  By and by, voices, speaking
+gravely&mdash;in intimate converse: this for a long, long time, while the
+muttering of the tenement ceased, and quiet fell....  A plea and an
+imploring protest.  She was wanting him to go to bed.  There followed
+the familiar indications that the child was being disrobed: shoes
+striking the floor, yawns, sleepy talk, crooning encouragement....
+Then a strange silence&mdash;puzzling to the listener: not accountable by
+his recollection of similar occasions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a quick step in the hall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poddle!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dog-faced Man started.  There was alarm in the voice&mdash;despair,
+resentment.  On the threshold stood the woman&mdash;distraught: one hand
+against the door-post, the other on her heart.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poddle, he's&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle, thrown into a paroxysm of fright by the pause, struggled to
+his elbow, but fell back, gasping.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What's he doin'?" he managed to whisper.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Prayin'!" she answered, hoarsely.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle was utterly nonplussed.  The situation was unprecedented:
+not to be dealt with on the basis of past experience.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Religion In Haste,'" he sighed, sadly confounded.  "'Repent At
+Leisure.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Prayin'!" she repeated, entering on tiptoe.  "He's down on his
+knees&mdash;<I>prayin'</I>!"  She began to pace the floor&mdash;wringing her hands: a
+tragic figure.  "It's come, Poddle!" she whimpered, beginning now to
+bite at her fingernails.  "He's changed.  He never seen me pray.  <I>I</I>
+never told him how.  Oh, he's&mdash;different.  And he'll change more.  I
+got to face it.  He'll soon be like the people that&mdash;that&mdash;don't
+understand us.  I couldn't stand it to see that stare in his eyes.
+It'll kill me, Poddle!  I knew it would come," she continued,
+uninterrupted, Mr. Poddle being unable to come to her assistance for
+lack of breath.  "But I didn't think it would be so&mdash;awful soon.  And I
+didn't know how much it would hurt.  I didn't <I>think</I> about it.  I
+didn't dare.  Oh, my baby!" she sobbed.  "You'll not love your mother
+any more&mdash;when you find her out.  You'll be just like&mdash;all them
+people!"  She came to a full stop.  "Poddle," she declared, trembling,
+her voice rising harshly, "I got to do something.  I got to do
+it&mdash;<I>quick</I>!  What shall I do?  Oh, what shall I do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle drew a long breath.  "Likewise!" he gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She did not understand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Likewise!" Mr. Poddle repeated.  "'Fought the Devil With Fire.'
+Quick!"  He weakly beckoned her to be off.  "Don't&mdash;let him
+know&mdash;you're different.  Go and&mdash;pray yourself.  Don't&mdash;let on
+you&mdash;never done it&mdash;before."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She gave him a glad glance of comprehension&mdash;and disappeared...
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The boy had risen.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, brightly.  "You got through, didn't you, dear?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling&mdash;still
+reluctant to crawl within.  And he was very gravely regarding her, a
+cloud of anxious wonder in his eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Who taught you to," she hesitated, "do it&mdash;that way?" she pursued,
+making believe to be but lightly interested.  "The curate?  Oh, my!"
+she exclaimed, immediately changing the thought.  "Your mother's awful
+sleepy."  She counterfeited a yawn.  "I never kneel to&mdash;do it," she
+continued.  In a sharp glance she saw the wonder clearing from his
+eyes, the beginnings of a smile appear about his lips; and she was
+emboldened to proceed.  "Some kneels," she said, "and some doesn't.
+The curate, I suppose, kneels.  That's his way.  Now, <I>I</I> don't.  I was
+brought up&mdash;the other way.  I wait till I get in bed to&mdash;say mine.
+When you was a baby," she rattled, "I used to&mdash;keep it up&mdash;for hours at
+a time.  I just <I>love</I> to&mdash;do it.  In bed, you know.  I guess you never
+seen me kneel, did you?  But I think I will, after this, because
+you&mdash;do it&mdash;that way."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+His serenity was quite restored.  Glad to learn that his mother knew
+the solace of prayer, he rolled back on the pillows.  She tucked him in.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Now, watch me," she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I," said he, "will pray all over again.  In bed," he added;
+"because that's the way <I>you</I> do it."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She knelt.  "In God's name!" she thought, as she inclined her bead,
+"what can I do?  I've lost him.  Oh, I've lost him....  What'll I do
+when he finds out?  He'll not love me then.  Love me!" she thought,
+bitterly.  "He'll look at me like them people in the church.  I can't
+stand it!  I got to <I>do</I> something....  It won't be long.  They'll tell
+him&mdash;some one.  And I can't do nothing to help it!  But I <I>got</I> to do
+something....  My God!  I got to do something.  I'll dress better than
+this.  This foulard's a botch."  New fashions in dress, in coiffures,
+multiplied in her mind.  She was groping, according to her poor
+enlightenment.  "The pompadour!" she mused, inspired, according to the
+inspiration of her kind.  "It might suit my style.  I'll try it....
+But, oh, it won't do no good," she thought, despairing.  "<I>It</I> won't do
+no good....  I've lost him!  Good God!  I've lost my own child...."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rose.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It took you an awful long time," said the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes," she answered, absently.  "I'm the real thing.  When I pray, I
+pray good and hard."
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-154"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-154.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _Alienation_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="223" HEIGHT="71">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap11"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-155"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-155.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _A Child's Prayer_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="227" HEIGHT="158">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>A CHILD'S PRAYER</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+The boy's room was furnished in the manner of the curate's
+chamber&mdash;which, indeed, was severe and chaste enough: for the curate
+practiced certain monkish austerities not common to the clergy of this
+day.  It was a white, bare little room, at the top of the house,
+overlooking the street: a still place, into which, at bedtime, no
+distraction entered to break the nervous introspection, the high,
+wistful dreaming, sadly habitual to the child when left alone in the
+dark.  But always, of fine mornings, the sun came joyously to waken
+him; and often, in the night, when he lay wakeful, the moon peeped in
+upon the exquisite simplicity, and, discovering a lonely child,
+companionably lingered to hearten him.  The beam fell over the
+window-sill, crawled across the floor, climbed the bare wall.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a great white crucifix on the wall, hanging in the broad path
+of the moonlight.  It stared at the boy's pillow, tenderly appealing:
+the head thorn-crowned, the body drawn tense, the face uplifted in
+patient agony.  Sometimes it made the boy cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They who sin," he would repeat, "crucify the dear Lord again!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It would be very hard, then, to fall asleep....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So did the crucifix on the wall work within the child's heart&mdash;so did
+the shadows of the wide, still house impress him, so did the curate's
+voice and gentle teaching, so did the gloom, the stained windows, the
+lofty arches, the lights and low, sweet music of the Church of the
+Lifted Cross favour the subtle change&mdash;that he was now moved to pain
+and sickening disgust by rags and pinched faces and discord and dirt
+and feverish haste and all manner of harshness and unloveliness,
+conceiving them poignant as sin....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Mother and son were in the park.  It was evening&mdash;dusk: a grateful balm
+abroad in the air.  Men and women, returning from church, idled through
+the spring night.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But, dear," said his mother, while she patted his hand, "you mustn't
+<I>hate</I> the wicked!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He looked up in wonder.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, my! no," she pursued.  "Poor things!  They're not so bad&mdash;when you
+know them.  Some is real kind."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I could not <I>love</I> them!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Why not?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I <I>could</I> not!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So positive, this&mdash;the suggestion so scouted&mdash;that she took thought for
+her own fate.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Would you love me?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, mother!" he laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What would you do," she gravely continued, "if I was&mdash;a wicked woman?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He laughed again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What would you do," she insisted, "if somebody told you I was bad?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mother," he answered, not yet affected by her earnestness, "you could
+not be!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put her hands on his shoulders.  "What would you do?" she repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't!" he pleaded, disquieted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the question&mdash;low, intense, demanding answer.  He trembled.  She
+was not in play.  A sinful woman?  For a moment he conceived the
+possibility&mdash;vaguely: in a mere flash of feeling.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What would you do?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She sighed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," he whispered, "that I'd&mdash;die!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+That night, when the moonlight had climbed to the crucifix on the wall,
+the boy got out of bed.  For a long time he stood in the beam of soft
+light&mdash;staring at the tortured Figure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think I'd better do it!" he determined.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He knelt&mdash;lifted his clasped hands&mdash;began his childish appeal.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Dear Jesus," he prayed, "my mother says that I must not hate the
+wicked.  You heard her, didn't you, dear Jesus?  It was in the park,
+to-night, after church&mdash;at the bench near the lilac bush.  You <I>must</I>
+have heard her....  Mother says the wicked are kind, and not so bad.  I
+would like very much to love them.  She says they're nice&mdash;when you
+know them.  I know she's right, of course.  But it seems queer.  And
+she says I <I>ought</I> to love them.  So I want to do it, if you don't
+mind....  Maybe, if you would let me be a little wicked for a little
+while, I could do it.  Don't you think, Jesus, dear, that it is a good
+idea?  A little wicked&mdash;for just a little while.  I wouldn't care very
+much, if you didn't mind.  But if it hurts you very much, I don't want
+to, if you please....  But I would like to be a little wicked.  If I
+do, please don't forget me.  I would not like to be wicked long.  Just
+a little while.  Then I would be good again&mdash;and love the wicked, as my
+mother wants me to do.  Good-bye.  I mean&mdash;Amen!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The child knew nothing about sin.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-161"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-161.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _A Child's Prayer_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="246" HEIGHT="139">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap12"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-162"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-162.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _Mr. Poddle's Finale_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="231" HEIGHT="158">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>MR. PODDLE'S FINALE</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+Of a yellow, balmy morning, with a languid breeze stirring the curtains
+in the open windows of the street, a hansom cab, drawn by a lean gray
+beast, appeared near the curate's door.  What with his wild career, the
+nature of his errand, the extraordinary character of his fare, the
+driver was all elbows and eyes&mdash;a perspiring, gesticulating figure,
+swaying widely on the high perch.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Within was a lady so monstrously stout that she completely filled the
+vehicle.  Rolls of fat were tucked into every nook, jammed into every
+corner, calked into every crevice; and, at last, demanding place, they
+scandalously overflowed the apron.  So tight was the fit&mdash;so crushed
+and confined the lady's immensity&mdash;that, being quite unable to
+articulate or stir, but desiring most heartily to do both, she could do
+little but wheeze, and faintly wave a gigantic hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Proceeding thus&mdash;while the passenger gasped, and the driver
+gesticulated, and the hansom creaked and tottered, and the outraged
+horse bent to the fearful labour&mdash;the equipage presently arrived at the
+curate's door, and was there drawn up with a jerk.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Fat Lady was released, assisted to alight, helped across the
+pavement; and having waddled up three steps of the flight, and being
+unable without a respite to lift her massive foot for the fourth time,
+she loudly demanded of the impassive door the instant appearance of
+Dickie Slade: whereupon, the door flew open, and the boy bounded out.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Madame Lacara!" he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick, child!" the Fat Lady wheezed.  "Git your hat.  Your mother
+can't stay no longer&mdash;and I can't get up the stairs&mdash;and Poddle's
+dyin'&mdash;and <I>git your hat</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+In a moment the boy returned.  The Fat Lady was standing beside the
+cab&mdash;the exhausted horse contemplating her with no friendly eye.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Git in!" said she.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you do it," the driver warned.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Git in!" the Fat Lady repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not if he knows what's good for him," said the driver.  "Not first."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy hesitated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Git in, child!" screamed the Fat Lady.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't you do it," said the driver.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Child," the Fat Lady gasped, exasperated, "git in!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not first," the driver repeated.  "There ain't room for both; and once
+she lets her weight down&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe," the Fat Lady admitted, after giving the matter most careful
+consideration, "it would be better for you to set on me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Maybe," the boy agreed, much relieved, "it would."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+So Madame Lacara entered, and took the boy in her arms; and off, at
+last, they went towards the Box Street tenement, swaying, creaking,
+wheezing, with a troop of joyous urchins in the wake....
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was early afternoon&mdash;with the sunlight lying thick and warm on the
+window-ledge of Mr. Poddle's room, about to enter, to distribute cheer,
+to speak its unfailing promises.  The sash was lifted high; a gentle
+wind, clean and blue, blowing from the sea, over the roofs and the
+river, came sportively in, with a joyous little rush and swirl&mdash;but of
+a sudden failed: hushed, as though by unexpected encounter with the
+solemnity within.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy's mother was gone.  It was of a Saturday; she had not dared to
+linger.  When the boy entered, Mr. Poddle lay alone, lifted on the
+pillows, staring deep into the wide, shining sky: composed and
+dreamful.  The distress of his deformity, as the pains of dissolution,
+had been mitigated by the woman's kind and knowing hand: the tawny
+hair, by nature rank and shaggy, by habit unkempt, now damp with sweat,
+was everywhere laid smooth upon his face&mdash;brushed away from the eyes:
+no longer permitted to obscure the fast failing sight.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Beside him, close&mdash;drawing closer&mdash;the boy seated himself.  Very low
+and broken&mdash;husky, halting&mdash;was the Dog-faced Man's voice.  The boy
+must often bend his ear to understand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The hirsute," Mr. Poddle whispered, "adornment.  All ready for the
+last appearance.  'Natural Phenomonen Meets the Common Fate.'
+Celebrities," he added, with a little smile, "is just clay."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy took his hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She done it," Mr. Poddle explained, faintly indicating the unusual
+condition of his deforming hair, "with a little brush."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She?" the boy asked, with significant emphasis.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," Mr. Poddle sighed.  "Hush!  Not She&mdash;just her."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+By this the boy knew that the Mexican Sword Swallower had not
+relented&mdash;but that his mother had been kind.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She left that there little brush somewheres," Mr. Poddle continued,
+with an effort to lift his head, but failing to do more than roll his
+glazed eyes.  "There was a little handkerchief with it.  Can't you find
+'em, Richard?  I wish you could.  They make me&mdash;more comfortable.  Oh,
+I'm glad you got 'em!  I feel easier&mdash;this way.  She said you'd stay
+with me&mdash;to the last.  She said, Richard, that maybe you'd keep the
+hair away from my eyes, and the sweat from rollin' in.  For I'm easier
+that way; and I want to <I>see</I>," he moaned, "to the last!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy pressed his hand.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm tired of the hair," Mr. Poddle sighed.  "I used to be proud of it;
+but I'm tired of it&mdash;now.  It's been admired, Richard; it's been
+applauded.  Locks of it has been requested by the Fair; and the Strong
+has wished they was me.  But, Richard, celebrities sits on a lonely
+eminence.  And I <I>been</I> lonely, God knows! though I kept a smilin'
+face....  I'm tired of the hair&mdash;tired of fame.  It all looks
+different&mdash;when you git sight of the Common Leveller.  'Tired of His
+Talent.'  Since I been lyin' here, Richard, sick and alone, I been
+thinkin' that talent wasn't nothin' much after all.  I been wishin',
+Richard&mdash;wishin'!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The Dog-faced Man paused for breath.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I been wishin'," he gasped, "that I wasn't a phenomonen&mdash;but only a
+man!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The sunlight began to creep towards Mr. Poddle's bed&mdash;a broad, yellow
+beam, stretching into the blue spaces without: lying like a golden
+pathway before him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, "I'm goin' to die."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy began to cry.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't cry!" Mr. Poddle pleaded.  "I ain't afraid.  Hear me, Richard?
+I ain't afraid."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, no!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm glad to die.  'Death the Dog-faced Man's Best Friend.'  I'm glad!
+Lyin' here, I seen the truth.  It's only when a man looks back that he
+finds out what he's missed&mdash;only when he looks back, from the end of
+the path, that he sees the flowers he might have plucked by the way....
+Lyin' here, I been lookin' back&mdash;far back.  And my eyes is opened.  Now
+I see&mdash;now I know!  I have been travellin' a road where the flowers
+grows thick.  But God made me so I couldn't pick 'em.  It's love,
+Richard, that men wants.  Just love!  It's love their hearts is thirsty
+for....  And there wasn't no love&mdash;for me.  I been awful thirsty,
+Richard; but there wasn't no water anywhere in all the world&mdash;for me.
+'Spoiled In the Making.'  That's me.  'God's Bad Break.'  Oh, that's
+me!  I'm not a natural phenomonen no more.  I'm only a freak of nature.
+I ain't got no kick comin'.  I stand by what God done.  Maybe it wasn't
+no mistake; maybe He wanted to show all the people in the world what
+would happen if He was in the habit of gittin' careless.  Anyhow, I
+guess He's man enough to stand by the job He done.  He made me what I
+am&mdash;a freak.  I ain't to blame.  But, oh, my God!  Richard, it
+hurts&mdash;to be that!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy brushed the tears from the Dog-faced Man's eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," Mr. Poddle repeated.  "I ain't afraid to die.  For I been
+thinkin'&mdash;since I been lyin' here, sick and alone&mdash;I been thinkin' that
+us mistakes has a good deal&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy bent close.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Comin' to us!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The sunlight was climbing the bed-post.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I been lookin' back," Mr. Poddle repeated.  "Things don't look the
+same.  You gits a bird's-eye view of life&mdash;from your deathbed.  And it
+looks&mdash;somehow&mdash;different."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was a little space of silence&mdash;while the Dog-faced Man drew long
+breaths: while his wasted hand wandered restlessly over the coverlet.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You got the little brush, Richard?" he asked, his voice changing to a
+tired sigh.  "The adornment has got in the way again."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy brushed back the fallen hair&mdash;wiped away the sweat.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Your mother," said Mr. Poddle, faintly smiling, "does it better.
+She's used&mdash;to doing it.  You ain't&mdash;done it&mdash;quite right&mdash;have you?
+You ain't got&mdash;all them hairs&mdash;out of the way?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not all," Mr. Poddle gently persisted; "because I can't&mdash;see&mdash;very
+well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+While the boy humoured the fancy, Mr. Poddle lay musing&mdash;his hand still
+straying over the coverlet: still feverishly searching.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I used to think, Richard," he whispered, "that it ought to be done&mdash;in
+public."  He paused&mdash;a flash of alarm in his eyes.  "Do you hear me,
+Richard?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Sure?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle frowned&mdash;puzzled, it may be, by the distant sound, the
+muffled, failing rumble, of his own voice.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I used to think," he repeated, dismissing the problem, as beyond him,
+"that I'd like to do it&mdash;in public."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy waited.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Die," Mr. Poddle explained.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A man went whistling gaily past the door.  The merry air, the buoyant
+step, were strangely not discordant; nor was the sunshine, falling over
+the foot of the bed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Last Appearance of a Famous Freak!'" Mr. Poddle elucidated, his eyes
+shining with delight&mdash;returning, all at once, to his old manner.  "Git
+me, Richard?" he continued, excitedly.  "'Fitting Finale!  Close of a
+Curious Career!  Mr. Henry Poddle, the eminent natural phenomonen, has
+consented to depart this life on the stage of Hockley's Musee, on
+Sunday next, in the presence of three physicians, a trained nurse, a
+minister of the gospel and a undertaker.  Unparalleled Entertainment!
+The management has been at unprecedented expense to git this unique
+feature.  Death Defied!  A Extraordinary Educational Exhibition!  Note:
+Mr. Poddle will do his best to oblige his admirers and the patrons of
+the house by dissolving the mortal tie about the hour of ten o'clock;
+but the management cannot guarantee that the exhibition will conclude
+before midnight.'"  Mr. Poddle made a wry face&mdash;with yet a glint of
+humour about it.  "'Positively,'" said he, "'the last appearance of
+this eminent freak.  No return engagement.'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Again the buoyant step in the hall, the gaily whistled air&mdash;departing:
+leaving an expectant silence.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do it," Mr. Poddle gasped, worn out, "in public.  But since I been
+lyin' here," he added, "lookin' back, I seen the error.  The public,
+Richard, has no feelin'.  They'd laugh&mdash;if I groaned.  I don't like the
+public&mdash;no more.  I don't want to die&mdash;in public.  I want," he
+concluded, his voice falling to a thin, exhausted whisper, "only your
+mother&mdash;and you, Richard&mdash;and&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Did you say&mdash;Her?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The Lovely One!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll bring her!" said the boy, impulsively.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, no!  She wouldn't come.  I been&mdash;in  communication&mdash;recent.  And
+she writ back.  Oh, Richard, she writ back!  My heart's broke!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy brushed the handkerchief over the Dog-faced Man's eyes.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Are you muzzled,' says she, 'in dog days?'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't mind her!" cried the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"In the eyes of the law, Richard," Mr. Poddle exclaimed, his eyes
+flashing, "I ain't no dog!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy kissed his forehead&mdash;there was no other comfort to offer: and
+the caress was sufficient.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I wish," Mr. Poddle sighed, "that I knew how God will look at
+it&mdash;to-night!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle, exhausted by speech and emotion, closed his eyes.  By and
+by the boy stealthily withdrew his hand from the weakening clasp.  Mr.
+Poddle gave no sign of knowing it.  The boy slipped away....  And
+descending to the third floor of the tenement, he came to the room
+where lived the Mexican Sword Swallower: whom he persuaded to return
+with him to Mr. Poddle's bedside.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They paused at the door.  The woman drew back.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, Dick," she simpered, "I hate to!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just this once!" the boy pleaded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Just to say it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The reply was a bashful giggle.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't have to <I>mean</I> it," the boy argued.  "Just <I>say</I> it&mdash;that's
+all!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They entered.  Mr. Poddle was muttering the boy's name&mdash;in a vain
+effort to lift his voice.  His hands were both at the
+coverlet&mdash;picking, searching: both restless in the advancing sunshine.
+With a sob of self-reproach the boy ran quickly to the bedside, took
+one of the wandering hands, pressed it to his lips.  And Mr. Poddle
+sighed, and lay quiet again.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Mr. Poddle," the boy whispered, "she's come at last."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+There was no response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's come!" the boy repeated.  He gave the hand he held to the woman.
+Then he put his lips close to the dying man's ear.  "Don't you hear me?
+She's come!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Mr. Poddle opened his eyes.  "Her&mdash;massive&mdash;proportions!" he faltered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Quick!" said the boy.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Poddle," the woman lied, "I love you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then came the Dog-faced Man's one brief flash of ecstasy&mdash;expressed in
+a wondrous glance of joy and devotion: but a swiftly fading fire.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She loves me!" he muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I do, Poddle!" the woman sobbed, willing, now, for the grotesque
+deception.  "Yes, I do!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"'Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle gasped, "'and the Beast!'"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They listened intently.  He said no more....  Soon the sunbeam
+glorified the smiling face....
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-181"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-181.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _Mr. Poddle's Finale_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="245" HEIGHT="159">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap13"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-182"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-182.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _His Mother_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="229" HEIGHT="162">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>HIS MOTHER</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+While he waited for his mother to come&mdash;seeking relief from the
+melancholy and deep mystification of this death&mdash;the boy went into the
+street.  The day was well disposed, the crowded world in an amiable
+mood; he perceived no menace&mdash;felt no warning of catastrophe.  He
+wandered far, unobservant, forgetful: the real world out of mind.  And
+it chanced that he lost his way; and he came, at last, to that loud,
+seething place, thronged with unquiet faces, where, even in the
+sunshine, sin and poverty walked abroad, unashamed....  Rush, crash,
+joyless laughter, swollen flesh, red eyes, shouting, rags, disease:
+flung into the midst of it&mdash;transported from the sweet feeling and
+quiet gloom of the Church of the Lifted Gross&mdash;he was confused and
+frightened....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+A hand fell heartily on the boy's shoulder.  "Hello, there!" cried a
+big voice.  "Ain't you Millie Blade's kid?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir," the boy gasped.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was a big man&mdash;a broad-shouldered, lusty fellow, muscular and lithe:
+good-humoured and dull of face, winning of voice and manner.
+Countenance and voice were vaguely familiar to the boy.  He felt no
+alarm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What the devil you doing here?" the man demanded.  "Looking for
+Millie?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, no!" the boy answered, horrified.  "My mother isn't&mdash;<I>here</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, what you doing?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm lost."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man laughed.  He clapped the boy on the back.  "Don't you be
+afraid," said he, sincerely hearty.  "I'll take you home.  You know me,
+don't you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not your name."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Anyhow, you remember me, don't you?  You've seen me before?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Well, my name's Jim Millette.  I'm an acrobat.  And I know you.  Why,
+sure!  I remember when you was born.  Me and your mother is old
+friends.  Soon as I seen you I knew who you was.  'By gad!' says I, 'if
+that ain't Millie Slade's kid!'  How is she, anyhow?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's very well."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Working?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No," the boy answered, gravely; "my mother does not work."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man whistled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am living with Mr. Fithian, the curate," said the boy, with a sigh.
+"So my mother is having&mdash;a very good&mdash;time."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She must be lonely."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy shook his head.  "Oh, no!" said he.  "She is much
+happier&mdash;without me."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"She's <I>what</I>?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Happier," the boy repeated, "without me.  If she were not," he added,
+"I would not live with the curate."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man laughed.  It was in pity&mdash;not in merriment.  "Well, say," he
+said, "when you see your mother, you tell her you met Jim Millette on
+the street.  Will you?  You tell her Jim's been&mdash;married.  She'll
+understand.  And I guess she'll be glad to know it.  And, say, I guess
+she'll wonder who it's to.  You tell her it's the little blonde of the
+Flying Tounsons.  She'll know I ain't losing anything, anyhow, by
+standing in with that troupe.  Tell her it's all right.  You just tell
+her I said that everything was all right.  Will you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You ain't never been to a show, have you?" the man continued.  "I
+thought not.  Well, say, you come along with me.  It ain't late.  We'll
+see the after-piece at the Burlesque.  I'll take you in."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think," said the boy, "I had better not."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, come on!" the acrobat urged.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm awful glad to see you, Dick," he added, putting his arm around the
+boy, of kind impulse; "and I'd like to give you a good time&mdash;for
+Millie's sake."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy was still doubtful.  "I had better go home," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, now, don't you be afraid of me, Dick.  I'll take you home after
+the show.  We got lots of time.  Aw, come on!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It occurred to the boy that Providence had ordered events in answer to
+his prayer.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you," he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You'll have a good time," the acrobat promised.  "They say Flannigan's
+got a good show."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They made their way to the Burlesque.  Flannigan's Forty Flirts there
+held the boards.  "Girls!  Just Girls!  Grass Widows and Merry Maids!
+No Nonsense About 'Em!  Just Girls!  Girls!"  The foul and tawdry
+aspect of the entrance oppressed the child.  He felt some tragic
+foreboding....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Within it was dark to the boy's eyes.  The air was hot and
+foul&mdash;stagnant, exhausted: the stale exhalation of a multitude of lungs
+which vice was rotting; tasting of their very putridity.  A mist of
+tobacco smoke filled the place&mdash;was still rising in bitter, stifling
+clouds.  There was a nauseating smell of beer and sweat and
+disinfectants.  The boy's foot felt the unspeakable slime of the floor:
+he tingled with disgust.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+An illustrated song was in listless progress.  The light, reflected
+from the screen, revealed a throng of repulsive faces, stretching, row
+upon row, into the darkness of the rear, into the shadows of the
+roof&mdash;sickly and pimpled and bloated flesh: vicious faces, hopeless,
+vacuous, diseased.  And these were the faces that leered and writhed in
+the boy's dreams of hell.  Here, present and tangible, were gathered
+all his terrors.  He was in the very midst of sin.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The song was ended.  The footlights flashed high.  There was a burst of
+blatant music&mdash;a blare: unfeeling and discordant.  It grated
+agonizingly.  The boy's sensitive ear rebelled.  He shuddered....
+Screen and curtain disappeared.  In the brilliant light beyond, a group
+of brazen women began to cavort and sing.  Their voices were harsh and
+out of tune.  At once the faces in the shadow started into eager
+interest&mdash;the eyes flashing, with some strangely evil passion, unknown
+to the child, but acutely felt....  There was a shrill shout of
+welcome&mdash;raised by the women, without feeling.  Down the stage, her
+person exposed, bare-armed, throwing shameless glances, courting the
+sensual stare, grinning as though in joyous sympathy with the evil of
+the place, came a woman with blinding blonde hair.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It was the boy's mother.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+"Millie!" the acrobat ejaculated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy had not moved.  He was staring at the woman on the stage.  A
+flush of shame, swiftly departing, had left his face white.  Presently
+he trembled.  His lips twitched&mdash;his head drooped.  The man laid a
+comforting hand on his knee.  A tear splashed upon it.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't know she was here, Dick!" the acrobat whispered.  "It's a
+shame.  But I didn't know.  And I&mdash;I'm&mdash;sorry!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy looked up.  He called a smile to his face.  It was a brave
+pretense.  But his face was still wan.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I think I'd like to go home," he answered, weakly.  "It's&mdash;time&mdash;for
+tea."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't feel bad, Dick! It's all right.  <I>She's</I> all right."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you please," said the boy, still resolutely pretending ignorance,
+"I think I'd like to go&mdash;now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The acrobat waited for a blast of harsh music to subside.  The boy's
+mother began to sing&mdash;a voice trivially engaged: raised beyond its
+strength.  A spasm of distress contorted the boy's face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Brace up, Dick!" the man whispered.  "Don't take it so hard."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"If you please," the boy protested, "I'll be late for tea if I don't go
+now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The acrobat took his hand&mdash;guided him, stumbling, up the aisle: led him
+into the fresh air, the cool, clean sunlight, of the street....  There
+had been sudden confusion on the stage.  The curtain had fallen with a
+rush.  But it was now lifted, again, and the dismal entertainment was
+once more in noisy course.
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was now late in the afternoon.  The pavement was thronged.  Dazed by
+agony, blinded by the bright light of day, the boy was roughly jostled.
+The acrobat drew him into an eddy of the stream.  There the child
+offered his hand&mdash;and looked up with a dogged little smile.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Good-bye," he said.  "Thank you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The acrobat caught the hand in a warm clasp.  "You don't know your way
+home, do you?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Where you going?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The boy looked away.  There was a long interval.  Into the shuffle and
+chatter of the passing crowd crept the muffled blare of the orchestra.
+The acrobat still held the boy's hand tight&mdash;still anxiously watched
+him, his face overcast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Box Street?" he asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, Dick! think again," the acrobat pleaded.  "Come, now!  Ain't you
+going to Box Street?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, sir," the boy answered, low.  "I'm going to the curate's house,
+near the Church of the Lifted Cross."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were soon within sight of the trees in the park.  The boy's way
+was then known to him.  Again he extended his hand&mdash;again smiled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank you," he said.  "Good-bye."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The acrobat was loath to let the little hand go.  But there was nothing
+else to do.  He dropped it, at last, with a quick-drawn sigh.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It'll come out all right," he muttered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Then the boy went his way alone.  His shoulders were proudly
+squared&mdash;his head held high....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Meantime, they had revived Millie Slade.  She was in the common
+dressing-room&mdash;a littered, infamous, foul, place, situated below stage.
+Behind her the gas flared and screamed.  Still in her panderous
+disguise, within hearing of the rasping music and the tramp of the
+dance, within hearing of the coarse applause, this tender mother sat
+alone, unconscious of evil&mdash;uncontaminated, herself kept holy by her
+motherhood, lifted by her love from the touch of sin.  To her all the
+world was a temple, undefiled, wherein she worshipped, wherein the
+child was a Presence, purifying every place.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She had no strength left for tragic behaviour.  She sat limp, shedding
+weak tears, whimpering, tearing at her finger nails.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm found out!" she moaned.  "Oh, my God!  He'll never love me no
+more!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A woman entered in haste.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You got it, Aggie?" the mother asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Yes, dear.  Now, you just drink this, and you'll feel better."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't want it&mdash;now."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, now, you drink it!  Poor dear! It'll do you lots of good."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He wouldn't want me to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Aw, he won't know.  And you need it, dear.  <I>Do</I> drink it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, Aggie," said the mother.  "It don't matter that he don't know.  I
+just don't want it.  I <I>can't</I> do what he wouldn't like me to."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The glass was put aside.  And Aggie sat beside the mother, and drew her
+head to a sympathetic breast.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't cry!" she whispered.  "Oh, Millie, don't cry!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh," the woman whimpered, "he'll think me an ugly thing, Aggie.  He'll
+think me a skinny thing.  If I'd only got here in time, if I'd only
+looked right, he might have loved me still.  But he won't love me no
+more&mdash;after to-day!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hush, Millie!  He's only a kid.  He don't know nothing about&mdash;such
+things."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Only a kid," said the mother, according to the perverted experience of
+her life, "but still a man!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He wouldn't care."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"They <I>all</I> care!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Indeed, this was her view; and by her knowledge of the world she spoke.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not him," said Aggie.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The mother was infinitely distressed.  "Oh," she moaned, "if I'd only
+had time to pad!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+This was the greater tragedy of her situation: that she misunderstood.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-198"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-198.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _The Mother_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="244" HEIGHT="138">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap14"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-199"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-199.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _Nearing the Sea_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="231" HEIGHT="158">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>NEARING THE SEA</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+It was Sunday evening.  Evil-weather threatened.  The broad window of
+top floor rear looked out upon a lowering sky&mdash;everywhere gray and
+thick: turning black beyond the distant hills.  An hour ago the
+Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with
+the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular
+comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last
+distraction had departed.  The boy's mother was left undisturbed to
+prepare for the crucial moments in the park.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She was now nervously engaged before her looking-glass.  All the tools
+of her trade lay at hand.  A momentous problem confronted her.  The
+child must be won back.  He must be convinced of her worth.  Therefore
+she must be beautiful.  He thought her pretty.  She would be pretty.
+But how impress him?  By what appeal?  The pathetic? the tenderly
+winsome? the gay?  She would be gay.  Marvellous lies occurred to
+her&mdash;a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in
+deception.  And she would excite his jealousy.  Upon that feeling she
+would play.  She would blow hot; she would blow cold.  She would reduce
+him to agony&mdash;the most poignant agony he had ever suffered.  Then she
+would win him.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+To this end, acting according to the enlightenment of her kind, she
+plied her pencil and puffs; and when, at last, she stood before the
+mirror, new gowned, beautiful after the conventions of her kind, blind
+to the ghastliness of it, ignorant of the secret of her strength, she
+had a triumphant consciousness of power.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He'll love me," she thought, with a snap of the teeth.  "He's got to!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Jim Millette knocked&mdash;and pushed the door ajar, and diffidently
+intruded his head.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hello, Jim!" she cried.  "Come in!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man would not enter.  "I can't, Millie," he faltered.   "I just got
+a minute."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, come on in!" said she, contemptuously.  "Come in and tell me about
+it.  What did you do it for, Jim?  You got good and even, didn't you?
+Eh, Jim?" she taunted.  "You got even!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"It wasn't that, Millie," he protested.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, wasn't it?" she shrilled.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, it wasn't, Millie.  I didn't have no grudge against you."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then what was it?  Come in and tell me!" she laughed.  "You dassn't,
+Jim!  You're afraid! come in," she flashed, "and I'll make you lick my
+shoes!  And when you're crawling on the floor, Jim, like a slimy dog,
+I'll kick you out.  Hear me, you pup?  What you take my child in there
+for?" she cried.  "Hear me?  Aw, you pup!" she snarled.  "You're afraid
+to come in!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't go on, Millie," he warned her.  "Don't you go on like that.
+Maybe I <I>will</I> come in.  And if I do, my girl, it won't be me that'll
+be lickin' shoes.  It might be <I>you</I>!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Me!" she scorned.  "You ain't got no hold on me no more.  Come in and
+try it!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man hesitated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Come on!" she taunted.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ain't coming in, Millie," he answered.  "I didn't come up to come
+in.  I just come up to tell you I was sorry."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She laughed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I didn't know you was there, Millie," the man continued.  "If I'd
+knowed you was with the Forty Flirts, I wouldn't have took the boy
+there.  And I come up to tell you so."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Overcome by a sudden and agonizing recollection of the scene, she put
+her hands to her face.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And I come up to tell you something else," the acrobat continued,
+speaking gently.  "I tell you, Millie, you better look out.  If you
+ain't careful, you'll lose him for good.  He took it hard, Millie.
+Hard!  It broke the little fellow all up.  It hurt him&mdash;awful!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She began to walk the floor.  In the room the light was failing.  It
+was growing dark&mdash;an angry portent&mdash;over the roofs of the opposite city.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Do you want him back?" the man asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Want him back!" she cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Then," said he, his voice soft, grave, "take care!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Want him back?" she repeated, beginning, now, by habit, to tear at her
+nails.  "I got to have him back!  He's mine, ain't he?  Didn't I bear
+him?  Didn't I nurse him?  Wasn't it me that&mdash;that&mdash;<I>made</I> him?  He's
+my kid, I tell you&mdash;<I>mine</I>!  And I want him back!  Oh, I want him so!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man entered; but the woman seemed not to know it.  He regarded her
+compassionately.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"That there curate ain't got no right to him," she complained.  "<I>He</I>
+didn't have nothing to do with the boy.  It was only me and Dick.
+What's he sneaking around here for&mdash;taking Dick's boy away?  The boy's
+half mine and half Dick's.  The curate ain't got no share.  And now
+Dick's dead&mdash;and he's <I>all</I> mine!  The curate ain't got nothing to do
+with it.  We don't want no curate here.  I raised that boy for myself.
+I didn't do it to give him to no curate.  What right's he got coming
+around here&mdash;getting a boy he didn't have no pain to bear or trouble to
+raise?  I tell you <I>I</I> got that boy.  He's mine&mdash;and I want him!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"But you give the boy to the curate, Millie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No, I didn't!" she lied.  "He took the boy.  He come sneaking around
+here making trouble.  <I>I</I> didn't give him no boy.  And I want him
+back," she screamed, in a gust of passion.  "I want my boy back!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+A rumble of thunder&mdash;failing, far off&mdash;came from the sea.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie," the acrobat persisted, "you said you wasn't fit to bring him
+up."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I ain't," she snapped.  "But I don't care.  He's mine&mdash;and I'll have
+him."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Jim," the woman said, now quiet, laying her hands on the acrobat's
+shoulders, looking steadily into his eyes, "that boy's mine.  I want
+him&mdash;I want him&mdash;back.  But I don't want him if he don't love me.  And
+if I can't have him&mdash;if I can't have him&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'll be all alone, Jim&mdash;and I'll want&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He caught her hands.  "Me?" he asked.  "Will you want me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I don't know."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Millie," he said, speaking hurriedly, "<I>won't</I> you want me?  I've took
+up with the little Tounson blonde.  But <I>she</I> wouldn't care.  You know
+how it goes, Millie.  It's only for business.  She and me team up.
+That's all.  She wouldn't care.  And if you want me&mdash;if you want me,
+Millie, straight and regular, for better or for worse&mdash;if you want me
+that way, Millie&mdash;&mdash;"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't, Jim!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He let her hands fall&mdash;and drew away.  "I love you too much," he said,
+"to butt in now.  But if the boy goes back on you, Millie, I'll
+come&mdash;again.  You'll need me then&mdash;and that's why I'll come.  I don't
+want him to go back on you.  I want him to love you still.  It's
+because of the way you love him that I love you&mdash;in the way I do.  It
+ain't easy for me to say this.  It ain't easy for me to want to give
+you up.  But you're that kind of a woman, Millie.  You're that
+kind&mdash;since you got the boy.  I want to give you up.  You'd be better
+off with him.  You're&mdash;you're&mdash;<I>holier</I>&mdash;when you're with that child.
+You'd break your poor heart without that boy of yours.  And I want you
+to have him&mdash;to love him&mdash;to be loved by him.  If he comes back, you'll
+not see me again.  I've lived a life that makes me&mdash;not fit&mdash;to be with
+no child like him.  But so help me God!" the man passionately declared,
+"I hope he don't turn you down!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You're all right, Jim!" she sobbed.  "You're all right!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm going now," he said, quietly.  "But I got one more thing to say.
+Don't fool that boy!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked up.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't fool him," the man repeated.  "You'll lose him if you do."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not fool him?  It's so easy, Jim!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Ah, Millie," he said, with a hopeless gesture, "you're blind.  You
+don't know your own child.  You're blind&mdash;you're just blind!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What you mean, Jim?" she demanded.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"You don't know what he loves you for."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"What does he love me for?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+The man was at the door.  "Because," he answered, turning, "you're his
+mother!"
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+It was not yet nine o'clock.  The boy would still be in the church.
+She must not yet set out for the park.  So she lighted the lamp.  For a
+time she posed and grimaced before the mirror.  When she was perfect in
+the part, she sat in the rocking-chair at the broad window, there to
+rehearse the deceptions it was in her mind to practice.  But while she
+watched the threatening shadows gather, the lights on the river flash
+into life and go drifting aimlessly away, her mind strayed from this
+purpose, her willful heart throbbed with sweeter feeling&mdash;his childish
+voice, the depths of his eyes, the grateful weight of his head upon her
+bosom.  Why had he loved her?  Because she was his mother!  A forgotten
+perception returned to illuminate her way&mdash;a perception, never before
+reduced to formal terms, that her virtue, her motherly tenderness, were
+infinitely more appealing to him than the sum of her other attractions.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She started from the chair&mdash;her breast heaving with despairing alarm.
+Again she stood before the mirror&mdash;staring with new-opened eyes at the
+painted face, the gaudy gown: and by these things she was now horrified.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"He won't love me!" she thought.  "Not this way.  He&mdash;he&mdash;couldn't!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It struck the hour.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nine o'clock!" she cried.  "I got to <I>do</I> something!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She looked helplessly about the room.  Why had he loved her?  Because
+she was his mother!  She would be his mother&mdash;nothing more: just his
+mother.  She would go to him with that appeal.  She would not seek to
+win him.  She would but tell him that she was his mother.  She would be
+his mother&mdash;true and tender and holy.  He would not resist her plea....
+This determined, she acted resolutely and in haste: she stripped off
+the gown, flung it on the floor, kicked the silken heap under the bed;
+she washed the paint from her face, modestly laid her hair, robed
+herself anew.  And when again, with these new, seeing eyes, she looked
+into the glass, she found that she was young, unspoiled&mdash;still lovely:
+a sweetly wistful woman, whom he resembled.  Moreover, there came to
+transform her, suddenly, gloriously, a revelation: that of the
+spiritual significance of her motherhood.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Thank God!" she thought, uplifted by this vision.  "Oh, thank God!
+I'm like them other people.  I'm fit to bring him up!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+It thundered ominously.
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-213"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-213.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _Nearing the Sea_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="228" HEIGHT="70">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<HR ALIGN="center" WIDTH="60%">
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="chap15"></A>
+
+<A NAME="img-214"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-214.jpg" ALT="Headpiece to _The Last Appeal_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="229" HEIGHT="158">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<H3 ALIGN="center">
+<I>THE LAST APPEAL</I>
+</H3>
+
+<P>
+She sat waiting for him at the bench by the lilac bush.  He was late,
+she thought&mdash;strangely late.  She wondered why.  It was dark.  The
+night was close and hot.  There was no breath of air stirring in the
+park.  From time to time the lightning flashed.  In fast lessening
+intervals came the thunder.  Presently she caught ear of his step on
+the pavement&mdash;still distant: approaching, not from the church, but from
+the direction of the curate's home.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"And he's not running!" she thought, quick to take alarm.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+They were inexplicable&mdash;these lagging feet.  He had never before
+dawdled on the way.  Her alarm increased.  She waited anxiously&mdash;until,
+with eyes downcast, he stood before her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Richard!" she tenderly said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I'm here, mother," he answered; but he did not look at her.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She put her arms around him.  "Your mother," she whispered, while she
+kissed him, "is glad&mdash;to feel you&mdash;lying here."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He lay quiet against her&mdash;his face on her bosom.  She was thrilled by
+this sweet pressure.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Have you been happy?" she asked.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"No."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nor I, dear!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned his face&mdash;not to her: to the flaming cross above the church.
+She had invited a question.  But he made no response.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Nor I," she repeated.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+Still he gazed at the cross.  It was shining in a black cloud&mdash;high in
+the sky.  She felt him tremble.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Hold me tight!" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She drew him to her&mdash;glad to have him ask her to: having no disquieting
+question.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Tighter!" he implored.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She rocked him.  "Hush, dear!" she crooned.  "You're safe&mdash;with your
+mother.  What frightens you?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"The cross!" he sobbed.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+God knows! 'twas a pity that his childish heart misinterpreted the
+message of the cross&mdash;changing his loving purpose into sin.  But the
+misinterpretation was not forever to endure....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+The wind began to stir the leaves&mdash;tentative gusts: swirling eagerly
+through the park.  There was a flash&mdash;an instant clap of thunder,
+breaking overhead, rumbling angrily away.  Two men ran past.  Great
+drops of rain splashed on the pavement.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Let us go home," the boy said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not yet!" she protested.  "Oh, not yet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He escaped from her arms.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Don't go, Richard!" she whimpered.  "Please don't, dear! Not yet.
+I&mdash;I'm&mdash;oh, I'm not ready to say good-night.  Not yet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He took her hand.  "Come, mother!" he said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Not yet!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He dropped her hand&mdash;sprang away from her with a startled little cry.
+"Oh, mother," he moaned, "don't you want me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Home?" she asked, blankly.  "Home&mdash;with me?"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Oh, yes, mother! Let me go home.  Quick I Let us go....  The curate
+says I know best.  I went straight to him&mdash;yesterday&mdash;and told him.
+And he said I was wiser than he....  And I said good-bye.  Don't send
+me back.  For, oh, I want to go home&mdash;with you!"
+</P>
+
+<P>
+She opened her arms.  At that moment a brilliant flash of lightning
+illuminated the world.  For the first time the child caught sight of
+her face&mdash;the sweet, real face of his mother: now radiant, touched by
+the finger of the Good God Himself.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"Is it you?" he whispered.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"I am your mother."
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He leaped into her arms&mdash;found her wet eyes with his lips.  "Mother!"
+he cried.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+"My son!" she said.
+</P>
+
+<P>
+He turned again to the flaming cross&mdash;a little smile of defiance upon
+his lips.  But the defiance passed swiftly: for it was then revealed to
+him that his mother was good; and he knew that what the cross signified
+would continue with him, wherever he went, that goodness and peace
+might abide within his heart.  Hand in hand, while the thunder still
+rolled and the rain came driving with the wind, they hurried away
+towards the Box Street tenement....
+</P>
+
+<BR>
+
+<P>
+Let them go!  Why not?  Let them depart into their world!  It needs
+them.  They will glorify it.  Nor will they suffer loss.  Let them go!
+Love flourishes in the garden of the world we know.  Virtue is forever
+in bloom.  Let them go to their place!  Why should we wish to deprive
+the unsightly wilderness of its flowers?  Let the tenderness of this
+mother and son continue to grace it!
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<A NAME="img-220"></A>
+<CENTER>
+<IMG CLASS="imgcenter" SRC="images/img-220.jpg" ALT="Tailpiece to _The Last Appeal_" BORDER="0" WIDTH="187" HEIGHT="215">
+</CENTER>
+
+<BR><BR>
+
+<P CLASS="finis">
+THE END
+</P>
+
+<BR><BR><BR><BR>
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+<pre>
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan
+
+*** END OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER ***
+
+***** This file should be named 27550-h.htm or 27550-h.zip *****
+This and all associated files of various formats will be found in:
+        https://www.gutenberg.org/2/7/5/5/27550/
+
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+
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+
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@@ -0,0 +1,4070 @@
+The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan
+
+This eBook is for the use of anyone anywhere at no cost and with
+almost no restrictions whatsoever.  You may copy it, give it away or
+re-use it under the terms of the Project Gutenberg License included
+with this eBook or online at www.gutenberg.org
+
+
+Title: The Mother
+
+Author: Norman Duncan
+
+Illustrator: H. E. Fritz
+
+Release Date: December 17, 2008 [EBook #27550]
+
+Language: English
+
+Character set encoding: ASCII
+
+*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER ***
+
+
+
+
+Produced by Al Haines
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Cover]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: The Mother
+
+
+
+[Frontispiece: The Mother]
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Title page]
+
+
+
+The Mother
+
+
+by
+
+Norman Duncan
+
+
+
+
+
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+
+Publishers
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Copyright]
+
+
+
+Copyright 1905
+
+by
+
+Fleming H. Revell Company
+
+New York -- Chicago -- Toronto
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Dedication]
+
+
+To
+
+E. H. D.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decorations]
+
+
+The Decorations
+
+In This Book Were
+
+Designed by H. E. Fritz
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+Contents
+
+  BY PROXY
+  THE RIVER
+  A GARDEN OF LIES
+  THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE
+  AT MIDNIGHT
+  A MEETING BY CHANCE
+  RENUNCIATION
+  IN THE CURRENT
+  THE CHORISTER
+  ALIENATION
+  A CHILD'S PRAYER
+
+[Illustration: Decoration]
+
+  MR. PODDLE'S FINALE
+  HIS MOTHER
+  NEARING THE SEA
+  THE LAST APPEAL
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _By Proxy_]
+
+
+
+
+_BY PROXY_
+
+It will be recalled without effort--possibly, indeed, without
+interest--that the obsequies of the old Senator Boligand were a
+distinguished success: a fashionable, proper function, ordered by the
+young widow with exquisite taste, as all the world said, and conducted
+without reproach, as the undertaker and the clergy very heartily
+agreed.  At the Church of the Lifted Cross, the incident of the child,
+the blonde lady and the mysteriously veiled man, who sat in awe and
+bewildered amazement where the shadows gave deepest seclusion, escaped
+notice.  Not that the late Senator Boligand was in life aware of the
+existence of the child or the lady or the strange fellow with the veil.
+Nothing of the sort.  The one was the widow of Dick Slade, the other
+his son, born in wedlock; and the third was the familiar counsellor and
+intimate of them all.  The Senator was for once turned to good account:
+was made contributor to the sweetness of life, to the comfort of the
+humble.  That was all.  And I fancy that the shade of the grim old
+robber, lurking somewhere in the softly coloured gloom of the chancel,
+was not altogether averse to the farce in which his earthly tabernacle
+was engaged....
+
+When Dick Slade died in the big red tenement of Box Street, he died as
+other men die, complaining of the necessity; and his son, in the way of
+all tender children, sorely wept: not because his father was now lost
+to him, which was beyond his comprehension, but because the man must be
+put in a grave--a cold place, dark and suffocating, being underground,
+as the child had been told.
+
+"I don't want my father," he woefully protested, "to be planted!"
+
+"Planted!" cried the mother, throwing up her hands in indignant denial.
+"Who told you he'd be planted?"
+
+"Madame Lacara."
+
+"She's a liar," said the woman, composedly, without resentment.  "We'll
+cut the _planting_ out of _this_ funeral."  Her ingenuity, her
+resourcefulness, her daring, when the happiness of her child was
+concerned, were usually sufficient to the emergency.  "Why, darling!"
+she exclaimed.  "Your father will be taken right up into the sky.  He
+won't be put in no grave.  He'll go right straight to a place where
+it's all sunshine--where it's all blue and high and as bright as day."
+She bustled about: keeping an eye alert for the effect of her promises.
+She was not yet sure how this glorious ascension might be managed; but
+she had never failed to deceive him to his own contentment, and 'twas
+not her habit to take fainthearted measures.  "They been lying to you,
+dear," she complained.  "Don't you fret about graves.  You just wait,"
+she concluded, significantly, "and see!"
+
+The boy sighed.
+
+"Poddle and me," she added, with a wag of the head to convince him,
+"will show you where your father goes."
+
+"I wish," the boy said, wistfully, "that he wasn't dead."
+
+"Don't you do it!" she flashed.  "It don't make no difference to him.
+It's a good thing.  I bet he's glad to be dead."
+
+The boy shook his head.
+
+"Yes, he is!  Don't you think he isn't.  There ain't nothing like being
+dead.   Everybody's happy--when they're dead."
+
+"He's so still!" the boy whispered.
+
+"It feels fine to be still--like that."
+
+"And he's so cold!"
+
+"No!" she scorned.  "He don't feel cold.  You think he's cold.  But he
+ain't.  That's just what you _think_.  He's comfortable.  He's glad to
+be dead.  Everybody's glad to be dead."
+
+The boy shuddered.
+
+"Don't you do that no more!" said the woman.  "It don't hurt to be
+dead.  Honest, it don't!  It feels real good to be that way."
+
+"I--I--I don't think I'd like--to be dead!"
+
+"You don't have to if you don't want to," the woman replied, thrown
+into a confusion of pain and alarm.  To comfort him, to shield him from
+agony, to keep the shadow of fear from falling upon him: she desired
+nothing more; and she was content to succeed if but for the moment.  "I
+tell you," she continued, "you never will be dead--if you don't want
+to.  Your father wanted to be dead.  'I think, Millie,' says he, 'I'd
+like to be dead.'  'All right, Dick,' says I.  'If you want to, I won't
+stand in your way.  But I don't know about the boy.'  'Oh,' says he,
+'the boy won't stand in my way.'  'I guess that's right, Dick,' says I,
+'for the boy loves you.'  And so," she concluded, "he died.  But _you_
+don't have to die.  You'll never die--not unless you want to."  She
+kissed him.  "Don't you be afraid, dear!" she crooned.
+
+"I'm not--afraid."
+
+"Well, then," she asked, puzzled, "what _are_ you?"
+
+"I don't know," he faltered.  "I think it makes me--sick at
+the--stomach."
+
+He had turned white.  She took him in her arms, to comfort and hearten
+him--an unfailing device: her kisses, her warm, ample bosom, her close
+embrace; he was by these always consoled....
+
+
+Next day, then, in accordance with the woman's device, the boy and his
+mother set out with the veiled man for the Church of the Lifted Cross,
+where the obsequies of Senator Boligand were to take place.  It was sad
+weather--a cold rain falling, the city gray, all the world black-clad
+and dripping and sour of countenance.  The veiled man said never a
+word; he held the boy's hand tight, and strode gloomily on--silent of
+melancholy, of protest, of ill temper: there was no knowing, for his
+face was hid.  The woman, distinguished by a mass of blinding blonde
+hair and a complexion susceptible to change by the weather, was dressed
+in the ultra-fashionable way--the small differences of style all
+accentuated: the whole tawdry and shabby and limp in the rain.  The
+child, a slender boy, delicately white of skin, curly headed, with
+round, dark eyes, outlooking in wonder and troubled regard, but yet
+bravely enough, trotted between the woman and the man, a hand in the
+hand of each....  And when they came to the Church of the Lifted Cross;
+and when the tiny, flickering lights, and the stained windows, and the
+shadows overhead, and the throbbing, far-off music had worked their
+spell upon him, he snuggled close to his mother, wishing himself well
+away from the sadness and mystery of the place, but glad that its
+solemn splendour honoured the strange change his father had chosen to
+undergo.
+
+"Have they brought papa yet?" he whispered.
+
+"Hush!" she answered.  "He's come."
+
+For a moment she was in a panic--lest the child's prattle, being
+perilously indiscreet, involve them all in humiliating difficulties.
+Scandal of this sort would be intolerable to the young Boligand widow.
+
+"Where is he?"
+
+"Don't talk so loud, dear.  He's down in front--where all the lights
+are."
+
+"Can't we go there?'
+
+"No, no!" she whispered, quickly.  "It isn't the way.  We must sit
+here.  Don't talk, dear; it isn't the way."
+
+"I'd like to--kiss him."
+
+"Oh, my!" she exclaimed.  "It isn't allowed.  We got to sit right here.
+That's the way it's always done.  Hush, dear!  Please don't talk."
+
+With prayer and soulful dirges--employing white robes and many lights
+and the voices of children--the body of Senator Boligand was dealt
+with, in the vast, dim church, according to the forms prescribed, and
+with due regard for the wishes of the young widow.  The Senator was an
+admirable substitute; Dick Slade's glorious ascension was accomplished.
+And the heart of the child was comforted by this beauty: for then he
+knew that his father was by some high magic admitted to the place of
+which his mother had told him--some place high and blue and ever light
+as day.  The fear of death passed from him.  He was glad, for his
+father's sake, that his father had died; and he wished that he, too,
+might some day know the glory to which his father had attained.
+
+But when the earthly remains of the late distinguished Senator were
+borne down the aisle in solemn procession, the boy had a momentary
+return of grief.
+
+"Is that papa in the box?" he whimpered.
+
+His mother put her lips to his ear.  "Yes," she gasped.  "But don't
+talk.  It isn't allowed."
+
+The veiled man turned audibly uneasy.  "Cuss it!" he fumed.
+
+"Oh, father!" the boy sobbed.
+
+With happy promptitude the veiled man acted.  He put a hand over the
+boy's mouth.  "For God's sake, Millie," he whispered to the woman,
+"let's get out of here!  We'll be run in."
+
+"Hush, dear!" the woman commanded: for she was much afraid.
+
+After that, the child was quiet.
+
+
+From the room in the Box Street tenement, meantime, the body of Dick
+Slade had been taken in a Department wagon to a resting-place befitting
+in degree.
+
+"Millie," the veiled man protested, that night, "you didn't ought to
+fool the boy."
+
+"It don't matter, Poddle," said she.  "And I don't want him to feel
+bad."
+
+"You didn't ought to do it," the man persisted.  "It'll make trouble
+for him."
+
+"I can't see him hurt," said the woman, doggedly.  "I love him so much.
+Poddle, I just can't!  It hurts _me_."
+
+The boy was now in bed.  "Mother," he asked, lifting himself from the
+pillow, "when will I die?"
+
+"Why, child!" she ejaculated.
+
+"I wish," said the boy, "it was to-morrow."
+
+"There!" said the woman, in triumph, to the man.  "He ain't afraid of
+death no more."
+
+"I told you so, Millie!" the man exclaimed, at the same instant.
+
+"But he ain't afraid to die," she persisted.  "And that's all I want."
+
+"You can't fool him always," the man warned.
+
+The boy was then four years old....
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _By Proxy_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The River_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE RIVER_
+
+Top floor rear of the Box Street tenement looked out upon the river.
+It was lifted high: the activities of the broad stream and of the
+motley world of the other shore went silently; the petty noises of
+life--the creak and puff and rumble of its labouring
+machinery,--straying upward from the fussy places below, were lost in
+the space between.
+
+Within: a bed, a stove, a table--the gaunt framework of home.  But the
+window overlooked the river; and the boy was now seven years old,
+unknowing, unquestioning, serenely obedient to the circumstances of his
+life: feeling no desire that wandered beyond the familiar presence of
+his mother--her voice and touch and brooding love.
+
+It was a magic window--a window turned lengthwise, broad, low,
+small-paned, disclosing wonders without end: a scene of infinite
+changes.  There was shipping below, restless craft upon the water; and
+beyond, dwarfed in the distance, was a confusion of streets, of flat,
+puffing roofs, stretching from the shining river to the far, misty
+hills, which lay beside the sea, invisible and mysterious.
+
+But top floor rear was remote from the river and the roofs.  From the
+window--and from the love in the room--the boy looked out upon an alien
+world, heard the distant murmur, monotonously proceeding, night and
+day: uncomprehending, but unperturbed....
+
+
+In the evening the boy sat with his mother at the window.  Together
+they watched the shadows gather--the hills and the city and the river
+dissolve: the whole broad world turn to points of light, twinkling,
+flashing, darting, in the black, voiceless gulf.  Nor would she fail to
+watch the night come, whether in gentle weather or whipping rain: but
+there would sit, the boy in her arms, held close to her breast, her
+hand straying restlessly over his small body, intimately caressing it.
+
+The falling shadows; the river, flowing unfeelingly; the lights,
+wandering without rest, aimless, forever astray in the dark: these were
+a spell upon her.
+
+"They go to the sea!" she whispered, once.
+
+"The ships, mother?"
+
+She put his head in the hollow of her shoulder, where her cheek might
+touch his hair: all the time staring out at the lights on the river.
+
+"All the ships, all the lights on the river," she said, hoarsely, "go
+out there."
+
+"Why?"
+
+"The river takes them."
+
+He was made uneasy: being conscious of the deeper meaning--acutely
+aware of some strange dread stirring in her heart.
+
+"Maybe," he protested, "they're glad to go away."
+
+She shook her head.  "One night," she said, leaning towards the window,
+seeming now to forget the boy, "I seen the sea.  All the lights on the
+river go different ways--when they get out there.  It is a dark and
+lonesome place--big and dark and lonesome."
+
+"Then," said he, quickly, "you would not like to be there."
+
+"No," she answered.  "I do not like the sky," she continued; "it is so
+big and empty.  I do not like the sea; it is so big and dark.  And
+black winds are always blowing there; and the lights go different ways.
+The lights," she muttered, "go different ways!  I am afraid of the
+dark.  And, oh!" she moaned, suddenly crushing him to her breast,
+rocking him, in an agony of tenderness, "I am afraid of something else.
+Oh, I am afraid!"
+
+"Of what?" he gasped.
+
+"To be alone!" she sobbed.
+
+He released himself from her arms--sat back on her knee: quivering from
+head to foot, his hands clenched, his lips writhing.  "Don't, mother!"
+he cried.  "Don't cry.  We will not go to the sea.  We _will_ not!"
+
+"We must," she whispered.
+
+"Oh, why?"
+
+She kissed him: her hand slipped under his knees; and she drew him
+close again--and there held him until he lay quiet in her arms.
+
+"We are like the lights on the river," she said.  "The river will take
+us to a place where the lights go different ways."
+
+"We will not go!"
+
+"The river will take us."
+
+The boy was puzzled: he lifted his head, to watch the lights drift
+past, far below; and he was much troubled by this mystery.  She tried
+to gather his legs in her lap--to hold him as she used to do, when he
+was a child at her breast; but he was now grown too large for that, and
+she suffered, again, the familiar pain: a perception of alienation--of
+inevitable loss.
+
+"When?" he asked.
+
+She let his legs fall.  "Soon," she sighed.  "When you are older; it
+won't be long, now.  When you are a little wiser; it will be very soon."
+
+"When I am wiser," he pondered, "we must go.  What makes me wiser?"
+
+"The wise."
+
+"Are you wise?"
+
+"God help me!" she answered.
+
+He nestled his head on her shoulder--dismissing the mystery with a
+quick sigh.  "Never mind," he said, to comfort her.  "You will not be
+alone.  I will be with you."
+
+"I wonder!" she mused.
+
+For a moment more she looked out; but she did not see the river--but
+saw the wide sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the great multitude of
+lights went apart, each upon its mysterious way.
+
+"Mother," he repeated, reproachfully, mystified by her hesitation, "I
+will always be with you."
+
+"I wonder!" she mused.
+
+To this doubt--now clear to him beyond hope--there was instant
+response: strangely passionate, but in keeping with his nature, as she
+knew.  For a space he lay rigid on her bosom: then struggled from her
+embrace, brutally wrenching her hands apart, flinging off her arms.  He
+stood swaying: his hands clenched, his slender body aquiver, as before,
+his dark eyes blazing reproach.  It gave her no alarm, but, rather,
+exquisite pleasure, to watch his agony.  She caught him by the
+shoulders, and bent close, that by the night-light, coming in at the
+window, she might look into his eyes: wherein, swiftly, the flare of
+reproach turned to hopeless woe.  And she was glad that he suffered:
+exalted, so that she, too, trembled.
+
+"Oh," he pleaded, "say that I will always be with you!"
+
+She would not: but continued to exult in his woeful apprehension.
+
+"Tell me, mother!" he implored.  "Tell me!"
+
+Not yet: for there was no delight to be compared with the proved
+knowledge of his love.
+
+"Mother!" he cried.
+
+"You do not love me," she said, to taunt him.
+
+"Oh, don't!" he moaned.
+
+"No, no!" she persisted.  "You don't love your mother any more."
+
+He was by this reduced to uttermost despair; and he began to beat his
+breast, in the pitiful way he had.  Perceiving, then, that she must no
+longer bait him, she opened her arms.  He sprang into them.  At once
+his sobs turned to sighs of infinite relief, which continued, until, of
+a sudden, he was hugged so tight that he had no breath left but to gasp.
+
+"And you will always be with me?" he asked.
+
+"It is the way of the world," she answered, while she kissed him, "that
+sons chooses for themselves."
+
+With that he was quite content....
+
+
+For a long time they sat silent at the window.  The boy dreamed
+hopefully of the times to come--serenity restored.  For the moment the
+woman was forgetful of the foreshadowed days, happy that the warm,
+pulsing little body of her son lay unshrinking in her arms: so
+conscious of his love and life--so wishful for a deeper sense of
+motherhood--that she slipped her hand under his jacket and felt about
+for his heart, and there let her fingers lie, within touch of its
+steady beating.  The lights still twinkled and flashed and aimlessly
+wandered in the night; but the spell of the river was lifted.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Garden of Lies_]
+
+
+
+
+_A GARDEN OF LIES_
+
+Withal it was a rare mood: nor, being wise, was she given to expressing
+it in this gloomy fashion.  It was her habit, rather, assiduously to
+woo him: this with kisses, soft and wet; with fleeting touches; with
+coquettish glances and the sly display of her charms; with rambling,
+fantastic tales of her desirability in the regard of men--thus
+practicing all the familiar fascinations of her kind, according to the
+enlightenment of the world she knew.  He must be persuaded, she
+thought, that his mother was beautiful, coveted; convinced of her wit
+and gaiety: else he would not love her.  Life had taught her no other
+way....  And always at break of day, when he awoke in her arms, she
+waited, with a pang of anxiety, pitilessly recurring, lest there be
+some sign that despite her feverish precautions the heedless world had
+in her nightly absence revealed that which she desperately sought to
+hide from him....
+
+
+Thus, by and by, when the lamp was alight--when the shadows were all
+chased out of the window, driven back to the raw fall night, whence
+they had crept in--she lapsed abruptly into her natural manner and
+practices.  She spread a newspaper on the table, whistling in a cheery
+fashion, the while covertly observing the effect of this lively
+behaviour.  With a knowing smile, promising vast gratification, she got
+him on her knee; and together, cheek to cheek, her arm about his waist,
+they bent over the page: whereon some function of the rich, to which
+the presence of the Duchess of Croft and of the distinguished Lord
+Wychester had given sensational importance, was grotesquely pictured.
+
+"Now, mother," said he, spreading the picture flat, "show me you."
+
+"This here lady," she answered, evasively, "is the Duchess of Croft."
+
+"Is it?" he asked, without interest.  "She is very fat.  Where are you?"
+
+"And here," she proceeded, "is Lord Wychester."
+
+"Mother," he demanded, "where are _you_?"
+
+She was disconcerted; no promising evasion immediately occurred to her.
+"Maybe," she began, tentatively, "this lady here----"
+
+"Oh, no!" he cried, looking up with a little laugh.  "It is not like
+you, at all!"
+
+"Well," she said, "it's probably meant for me."
+
+He shook his head; and by the manner of this she knew that he would not
+be deceived.
+
+"Perhaps," she said, "the Duchess told the man not to put me in the
+picture.  I guess that's it.  She was awful jealous.  You see, dear,"
+she went on, very solemnly, "Lord Wychester took a great fancy to me."
+
+He looked up with interest.
+
+"To--my shape," she added.
+
+"Oh!" said he.
+
+"And that," she continued, noting his pleasure, "made the Duchess hot;
+for _she's_ too fat to have much of a figure.  Most men, you know," she
+added, as though reluctant in her own praise, "do fancy mine."  She
+brushed his cheek with her lips.  "Don't you think, dear," she asked,
+assuming an air of girlish coquetry, thus to compel the compliment,
+"that I'm--rather--pretty?"
+
+"I think, mother," he answered, positively, "that you're very, very
+pretty."
+
+It made her eyes shine to hear it.  "Well," she resumed, improvising
+more confidently, now, "the Duchess was awful mortified because Lord
+Wychester danced with me seventeen times.  'Lord Wychester,' says she,
+'what _do_ you see in that blonde with the diamonds?'  'Duchess,' says
+he, 'I bet the blonde don't weigh over a hundred and ten!'"
+
+There was no answering smile; the boy glanced at the picture of the
+wise and courtly old Lord Wychester, gravely regarded that of the
+Duchess of Croft, of whose matronly charms, of whose charities and
+amiable qualities, all the world knows.
+
+"What did she say?" he asked.
+
+"'Oh, dear me, Lord Wychester!' says she.  'If you're looking for
+bones,' says she, 'that blonde is a regular glue-factory!'"
+
+He caught his breath.
+
+"'A regular glue-factory,'" she repeated, inviting sympathy.  "That's
+what she said."
+
+"Did you cry?"
+
+"Not me!" she scorned.  "Cry?  Not me!  Not for no mountain like her!"
+
+"And what," he asked, "did Lord Wychester do?"
+
+"'Back to the side-show, Duchess!' says Lord Wychester.  'You're too
+fat for decent company.  My friend the Dook,' says he, 'may be partial
+to fat ladies and ten-cent freaks; but _my_ taste runs to slim
+blondes.'"
+
+No amusement was excited by Lord Wychester's second sally.  In the
+world she knew, it would have provoked a shout of laughter.  The boy's
+gravity disquieted her.
+
+"Did you laugh?" he asked.
+
+"Everybody," she answered, pitifully, "give her the laugh."
+
+He sighed--somewhat wistfully.  "I wish," he said, "that _you_ hadn't."
+
+"Why not!" she wondered, in genuine surprise.
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Why, dear!" she exclaimed, a note of alarm in her voice.  "It isn't
+bad manners!  Anyhow," she qualified, quick to catch her cue, "I didn't
+laugh much.  I hardly laughed at all.  I don't believe I _did_ laugh."
+
+"I'm glad," he said.
+
+Then, "I'm sure of it," she ventured, boldly; and she observed with
+relief that he was not incredulous.
+
+"Did the Duchess cry?"
+
+"Oh, my, no!  'Waiter,' says the Duchess, 'open another bottle of that
+wine.  I feel faint.'"
+
+"What did Lord Wychester do then?"
+
+"He paid for the wine."  It occurred to her that she might now surely
+delight him.  "Then he wanted to buy a bottle for me," she continued,
+eagerly, "just to spite the Duchess.  'If _she_ can have wine,' says
+he, 'there isn't no good reason why _you_ got to go dry.'  But I
+couldn't see it.  'Oh, come on!' says he.  'What's the matter with you?
+Have a drink.'  'No, you don't!' says I.  'Why not?' says he."  She
+drew the boy a little closer, and, in the pause she patted his hand.
+"'Because,' says I," she whispered, tenderly, "'I got a son; and I
+_don't want him to do no drinking when he grows up_!'"  She paused
+again--that the effect of the words and of the caress might not be
+interrupted.  "'Come off!' says Lord Wychester," she went on; "'you
+haven't got no son.'  'You wouldn't think to look at me,' says I, 'that
+I got a son seven years old the twenty-third of last month.'  'To the
+tall timber!' says he.  'You're too young and pretty.  I'll give you a
+thousand dollars for a kiss.'  'No, you don't!' says I.  'Why not?'
+says he.  'Because,' says I, 'you don't.'  'I'll give you two
+thousand,' says he."
+
+She was interrupted by the boy; his arms were anxiously stealing round
+her neck.
+
+"'Three thousand!' says he."
+
+"Mother," the boy whispered, "did you give it to him?"
+
+Again, she drew him to her: as all mothers will, when, in the twilight,
+they tell tales to their children, and the climax approaches.
+
+"'Four thousand!' says he."
+
+"Mother," the boy implored, "tell me quick!  What did you say?"
+
+"'Lord Wychester,' says I, 'I don't give kisses,' says I, 'because my
+son doesn't want me to do no such thing!  No, sir!  Not for a million
+dollars!'"
+
+She was then made happy by his rapturous affection; and she now first
+perceived--in a benighted way--that virtue was more appealing to him
+than the sum of her physical attractions.  Upon this new thought she
+pondered.  She was unable to reduce it to formal terms, to be sure; but
+she felt a new delight, a new hope, and was uplifted, though she knew
+not why.  Later--at the crisis of their lives--the perception returned
+with sufficient strength to illuminate her way....
+
+
+Presently the boy broke in upon her musing.  "It was blondes Lord
+Wychester liked," he remarked, with pride; "wasn't it, mother?"
+
+"Slim blondes," she corrected.
+
+"Bleached blondes?"
+
+She was appalled by the disclosure; and she was taken unaware: nor did
+she dare discover the extent, the significance, of this new
+sophistication, nor whence it came, lest she be all at once involved in
+a tangle of explanation, from which there could be no sure issue.  She
+sighed; her head drooped, until it rested on his shoulder, her wet
+lashes against his cheek--despairing, helpless.
+
+"What makes you sad?" he asked.
+
+Then she gathered impetuous courage.  She must be calm, she knew; but
+she must divert him.  "See," she began, "what it says about your mother
+in the paper!"  She ran her finger down a long column of the fulsome
+description of the great Multon ball--the list of fashionables, the
+costumes.  "Here it is!  'She was the loveliest woman at the dance.'
+That's me.  'All the men said so.  What if she is a bleached blonde?
+Some people says that bleached blondes is no good.  It's a lie!'" she
+cried, passionately, to the bewilderment of the boy.  "'God help them!
+There's honest people everywhere.'  Are you listening?  Here's more
+about me.  'She does the best she can.  Maybe she _don't_ amount to
+much, maybe she _is_ a bleached blonde; but she does the best she can.
+She never done no wrong in all her life.  She loves her son too much
+for that.  Oh, she loves her son!  She'd rather die than have him feel
+ashamed of her.  There isn't a better woman in the world, There isn't a
+better mother----'"
+
+He clapped his hands.
+
+"Don't you believe it?" she demanded.  "Don't you believe what the
+paper says?"
+
+"It's true!" he cried.  "It's all true!"
+
+"How do you know," she whispered, intensely, "that it's all true?"
+
+"I--just--_feel_ it!"
+
+They were interrupted by the clock.  It struck seven times....
+
+
+In great haste and alarm she put him from her knee; and she caught up
+her hat and cloak, and kissed him, and ran out, calling back her
+good-night, again and again, as she clattered down the stairs....  In
+the streets of the place to which she hurried, there were flaming
+lights, the laughter of men and flaunting women, the crash and rumble
+and clang of night-traffic, the blatant clamour of the pleasures of
+night; shuffling, blear-eyed derelicts of passion, creeping beldames,
+peevish children, youth consuming itself; rags and garish jewels,
+hunger, greasy content--a confusion of wretchedness, of greed and grim
+want, of delirious gaiety, of the sins that stalk in darkness....
+Through it all she brushed, unconscious--lifted from it by the magic of
+this love: dwelling only upon the room that overlooked the river, and
+upon the child within; remembering the light in his eyes and the
+tenderness of his kiss.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _A Garden of Lies_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Celebrity in Love_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE_
+
+While the boy sat alone, in wistful idleness, there came a knock at the
+door--a pompous rat-tat-tat, with a stout tap-tap or two added, once
+and for all to put the quality of the visitor beyond doubt.  The door
+was then cautiously pushed ajar to admit the head of the personage thus
+impressively heralded.   And a most extraordinary head it was--of
+fearsome aspect; nothing but long and intimate familiarity could resign
+the beholder to the unexpected appearance of it.  Long, tawny hair, now
+sadly unkempt, fell abundantly from crown to shoulders; and hair as
+tawny, as luxuriantly thick, almost as long, completely covered the
+face, from every part of which it sprang, growing shaggy and rank at
+the eyebrows, which served to ambush two sharp little eyes: so that the
+whole bore a precise resemblance to an ill-natured Skye terrier.  It is
+superfluous to add that this was at once the face and the fortune of
+Toto, the Dog-faced Man, known in private life, to as many intimates as
+a jealous profession can tolerate, as Mr. Poddle: for the present
+disabled from public appearance by the quality of the air supplied to
+the exhibits at Hockley's Musee, his lungs being, as he himself
+expressed it, "not gone, by no means, but gittin' restless."
+
+"Mother gone?" asked the Dog-faced Man.
+
+"She has gone, Mr. Poddle," the boy answered, "to dine with the Mayor."
+
+"Oh!" Mr. Poddle ejaculated.
+
+"Why do you say that?" the boy asked, frowning uneasily.  "You always
+say, 'Oh!'"
+
+"Do I?  'Oh!'  Like that?"
+
+"Why do you do it?"
+
+"Celebrities," replied Mr. Poddle, testily, entering at that moment,
+"is not accountable.  Me bein' one, don't ask me no questions."
+
+"Oh!" said the boy.
+
+Mr. Poddle sat himself in a chair by the window: and there began to
+catch and vent his breath; but whether in melancholy sighs or snorts of
+indignation it was impossible to determine.  Having by these violent
+means restored himself to a state of feeling more nearly normal, he
+trifled for a time with the rings flashing on his thin, white fingers,
+listlessly brushed the dust from the skirt of his rusty frock coat,
+heaved a series of unmistakable sighs: whereupon--and by this strange
+occupation the boy was quite fascinated--he drew a little comb, a
+little brush, a little mirror, from his pocket; and having set up the
+mirror in a convenient place, he proceeded to dress his hair, with
+particular attention to the eyebrows, which, by and by, he tenderly
+braided into two limp little horns: so that 'twas not long before he
+looked much less like a frowsy Skye terrier, much more like an owl.
+
+"The hour, Richard," he sighed, as he deftly parted his hair in the
+middle of his nose, "has came!"
+
+With such fond and hopeless feeling were these enigmatical words
+charged that the boy could do nothing but heave a sympathetic sigh.
+
+"You see before you, Richard, what you never seen before.  A man in the
+clutches," Mr. Poddle tragically pursued, giving a vicious little twist
+to his left eyebrow, "of the tender passion!"
+
+"Oh!" the boy muttered.
+
+"'Fame,'" Mr. Poddle continued, improvising a newspaper head-line, to
+make himself clear, "'No Shield Against the Little God's Darts.'  Git
+me?  The high and the low gits the arrows in the same place."
+
+"Does it--hurt?"
+
+"Hurt!" cried Mr. Poddle, furiously.  "It's perfectly excrugiating!
+Hurt?  Why----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, "but you are biting your
+mustache."
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, promptly.  "Glad to know it.  Can't afford
+to lose no more hirsute adornment.  And I'm give to ravagin' it in
+moments of excitement, especially sorrow.  Always tell me."
+
+"I will," the boy gravely promised.
+
+"The Pink-eyed Albino," Mr. Poddle continued, now released from the
+necessity of commanding his feelings, in so far as the protection of
+his hair was concerned, "was fancy; the Circassian Beauty was
+fascination; the Female Sampson was the hallugination of sky-blue
+tights; but the Mexican Sword Swallower," he murmured, with a
+melancholy wag, "is----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle," the boy warned, "you are--at it again."
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, hastily eliminating the danger.  "What I was
+about to remark," was his lame conclusion, "was that the Mexican Sword
+Swallower is _love_."
+
+"Oh!"
+
+The Dog-faced Man snapped a sigh in two.  "Richard," he insinuated
+suspiciously, "what you sayin', 'Oh!' for?"
+
+"Wasn't the Bearded Lady, love?"
+
+"Love!" laughed Mr. Poddle.  "Ha, ha!  Far from it!  Not so!  The
+Bearded Lady was the snare of ambition.  'Marriage Arranged Between the
+Young Duke of Blueblood and the Daughter of the Clothes-pin King.
+Millions of the Higgleses to Repair the Duke's Shattered Fortunes.'
+Git me?  'Wedding of the Bearded Lady and the Dog-faced Man.  Sunday
+Afternoon at Hockley's Popular Musee.  No Extra Charge for Admission.
+Fabulous Quantity of Human Hair on Exhibition At the Same Instant.
+Hirsute Wonders To Tour the Country at Enormous Expense.'  Git me?
+Same thing.  Love?  Ha, ha!  Not so!  There's no more love in _that_,"
+Mr. Poddle concluded, bitterly, "than----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle, you are----"
+
+"Thanks," faltered Mr. Poddle.  "As I was about to remark when
+you--ah--come to the rescue--love is froze out of high life.  Us
+natural phenomenons is the slaves of our inheritages."
+
+"But you said the Bearded Lady was love at last!"
+
+"'Duke Said To Be Madly In Love With the American Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle
+composedly replied.
+
+"I don't quite--get you?"
+
+"Us celebrities has our secrets.  High life is hollow.  Public must be
+took into account.  'Sacrificed On His Country's Altar.'  Git me?
+'Good of the Profession.'  Broken hearts--and all that."
+
+"Would you have broken the Bearded Lady's heart?"
+
+Mr. Poddle was by this recalled to his own lamentable condition.  "I've
+gone and broke my own," he burst out; "for I'm give to understand that
+the lovely Sword Swallower is got entangled with a tattooed man.  Not,"
+Mr. Poodle hastily added, "with a _real_ tattooed man!  Not by no
+means!  Far from it!  _He's only half done!_ Git me?  His legs is
+finished; and I'm give to understand that the Chinese dragon on his
+back is gettin' near the end of its tail.  There _may_ be a risin' sun
+on his chest, and a snake drawed out on his waist; of that I've heard
+rumors, but I ain't had no reports.  Not," said Mr. Poddle,
+impressively, "what you might call undenigeable reports.  And Richard,"
+he whispered, in great excitement and contempt, "that there half-cooked
+freak won't be done for a year!  He's bein' worked over on the
+installment plan.  And I'm give to understand that she'll wait!  Oh,
+wimmen!" the Dog-faced Man apostrophized.  "Took by shapes and
+complexions----"
+
+"Mr. Poddle, excuse me," the boy interrupted, diffidently, "but your
+eyebrow----"
+
+"Thanks," Mr. Poddle groaned, his frenzy collapsing.  "As I was about
+to say, wimmen is like arithmetic; there ain't a easy sum in the book."
+
+"Mr. Poddle!"
+
+"Thanks," said Mr. Poddle, in deep disgust.  "Am I at it again?
+O'erwhelming grief!  This here love will be the ruin of me.  'Bank
+Cashier Defaulted For a Woman.'  I've lost more priceless strands since
+I seen that charming creature than I'll get back in a year.  I've bit
+'em off!  I've tore 'em out!  If this here goes on I'll be a Hairless
+Wonder in a month.  'Suicided For Love.'  Same thing exactly.  And
+what's worse," he continued, dejectedly, "the objeck of my adoration
+don't look at it right.  She takes me for a common audience.  No regard
+for talent.  No appreciation for hair in the wrong place.  'Genius
+Jilted By A Factory Girl.'  And she takes that manufactured article of
+a tattooed man for a regular platform attraction!  Don't seem to
+_know_, Richard, that freaks is born, not made.  What's fame, anyhow?"
+
+The boy did not know.
+
+"Why, cuss me!" the Dog-faced Man exploded, "she treats me as if I was
+dead-headed into the Show!"
+
+"Excuse me, but----"
+
+"Thanks.  God knows, Richard, I ain't in love with her throat and
+stummick.  It ain't because the one's unequalled for resistin'
+razor-edged steel and the other stands unrivalled in its capacity for
+holdin' cold metal.  It ain't her talent, Richard.  No, it ain't her
+talent.  It ain't her beauty.  It ain't even her fame.  It ain't so
+much her massive proportions.  It's just the way she darns stockings.
+Just the way she sits up there on the platform darnin' them stockings
+as if there wasn't no such thing as an admirin' public below.  It's
+just her _self_.  Git me?  'Give Up A Throne To Wed A Butcher's
+Daughter.'  Understand?  Why, God bless you, Richard, if she was a Fiji
+Island Cannibal I'd love her just the same!"
+
+"I think, Mr. Poddle," the boy ventured, "that I'd tell her."
+
+"I did," Mr. Poddle replied.  "Much to my regrets I did.  I writ.
+Worked up a beautiful piece out of 'The Lightning Letter-writer for
+Lovers.'  'Oh, beauteous Sword-Swallower,' I writ, 'pet of the public,
+pride of the sideshow, bright particular star in the constellation of
+natural phenomenons!  One who is not unknown to fame is dazzled by your
+charms.  He dares to lift his stricken eyes, to give vent to the
+tumultuous beatings of his manly bosom, to send you, in fact, this
+note.  And if you want to know who done it, wear a red rose to-night.'
+Well," Mr. Poddle continued, "she seen me give it to the peanut-boy.
+And knowin' who it come from, she writ back.  She writ," Mr. Poddle
+dramatically repeated, "right back."
+
+The pause was so long, so painful, that the boy was moved to inquire
+concerning the answer.
+
+"It stabs me," said Mr. Poddle.
+
+"I think I'd like to know," said the boy.
+
+"'Are you much give,' says she, 'to barkin' in your sleep?'"
+
+A very real tear left the eye of Mr. Poddle, ran down the hair of his
+cheek, changed its course to the eyebrow, and there hung glistening....
+
+
+It was apparent that the Dog-faced Man's thoughts must immediately be
+diverted into more cheerful channels.  "Won't you please read to me,
+Mr. Poddle," said the boy, "what it says in the paper about my mother?"
+
+The ruse was effective.  Mr. Poddle looked up with a start.  "Eh?" he
+ejaculated.
+
+"Won't you?" the boy begged.
+
+"I been talkin' so much, Richard," Mr. Poddle stammered, turning hoarse
+all at once, "that I gone and lost my voice."
+
+He decamped to his room across the hall without another word.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _At Midnight_]
+
+
+
+
+_AT MIDNIGHT_
+
+At midnight the boy had long been sound asleep in bed.  The lamp was
+turned low.  It was very quiet in the room--quiet and shadowy in all
+the tenement....  And the stair creaked; and footfalls shuffled along
+the hall--and hesitated at the door of the place where the child lay
+quietly sleeping; and there ceased.  There was the rumble of a man's
+voice, deep, insistent, imperfectly restrained.  A woman protested.
+The door was softly opened; and the boy's mother stepped in, moving on
+tiptoe, and swiftly turned to bar entrance with her arm.
+
+"Hist!" she whispered, angrily.  "Don't speak so loud.  You'll wake the
+boy."
+
+"Let me in, Millie," the man insisted.  "Aw, come on, now!"
+
+"I can't, Jim.  You know I can't.  Go on home now.  Stop that!  I won't
+marry you.  Let go my arm.  You'll wake the boy, I tell you!"
+
+There was a short scuffle: at the end of which, the woman's arm still
+barred the door.
+
+"Here I ain't seen you in three year," the man complained.  "And you
+won't let me in.  That ain't right, Millie.  It ain't kind to an old
+friend like me.  You didn't used to be that way."
+
+"No," the woman whispered, abstractedly; "there's been a change.  I
+ain't the same as I used to be."
+
+"You ain't changed for the better, Millie.  No, you ain't."
+
+"I don't know," she mused.  "Sometimes I think not.  It ain't because I
+don't want you, Jim," she continued, speaking more softly, now, "that I
+don't let you in.  God knows, I like to meet old friends; but----"
+
+It was sufficient.  The man gently took her arm from the way.  He
+stepped in--glanced at the sleeping boy, lying still as death, shaded
+from the lamp--and turned again to the woman.
+
+"Don't wake him!" she said.
+
+They were still standing.  The man was short, long-armed, vastly broad
+at the shoulders, deep-chested: flashy in dress, dull and kind of
+feature--handsome enough, withal.  He was an acrobat.  Even in the dim
+light, he carried the impression of great muscular strength--of grace
+and agility.  For a moment the woman's eyes ran over his stocky body:
+then, spasmodically clenching her hands, she turned quickly to the boy
+on the bed; and she moved back from the man, and thereafter regarded
+him watchfully.
+
+"Don't make no difference if I do wake him," he complained.  "The boy
+knows me."
+
+"But he don't like you."
+
+"Aw, Millie!" said he, in reproach.  "Come off!"
+
+"I seen it in his eyes," she insisted.
+
+The man softly laughed.
+
+"Don't you laugh no more!" she flashed.  "You can't tell a mother what
+she sees in her own baby's eyes.  I tell you, Jim, he don't like you.
+He never did."
+
+"That's all fancy, Millie.  Why, he ain't seen me in three year!  And
+you can't see nothing in the eyes of a four year old kid.  You're too
+fond of that boy, anyhow," the man continued, indignantly.  "What's got
+into you?  You ain't forgot that winter night out there in Idaho, have
+you?  Don't you remember what you said to Dick that night?  You said
+Dick was to blame, Millie, don't you remember?  Remember the doctor
+coming to the hotel?  I'll never forget how you went on.  Never heard a
+woman swear like you before.  Never seen one go on like you went on.
+And when you hit Dick, Millie, for what you said he'd done, I felt bad
+for Dick, though I hadn't much cause to care for what happened to him.
+Millie, girl, you was a regular wildcat when the doctor told you what
+was coming.  You didn't want no kid, then!"
+
+"Don't!" she gasped.  "I ain't forgot.  But I'm changed, Jim--since
+then."
+
+He moved a step nearer.
+
+"I ain't the same as I used to be in them days," she went on, staring
+at the window, and through the window to the starry night.  "And Dick's
+dead, now.  I don't know," she faltered; "it's all sort of--different."
+
+"What's gone and changed you, Millie?"
+
+"I ain't the same!" she repeated.
+
+"What's changed you?"
+
+"And I ain't been the same," she whispered, "since I got the boy!"
+
+In the pause, he took her hand.  She seemed not to know it--but let it
+lie close held in his great palm.
+
+"And you won't have nothing to do with me?" he asked.
+
+"I can't," she answered.  "I don't think of myself no more.  And the
+boy--wouldn't like it."
+
+"You always said you would, if it wasn't for Dick; and Dick ain't here
+no more.  There ain't no harm in loving me now."  He tried to draw her
+to him.  "Aw, come on!" he pleaded.  "You know you like me."
+
+She withdrew her hand--shrank from him.  "Don't!" she said.  "I like
+you, Jim.  You know I always did.  You was always good to me.  I never
+cared much for Dick.  Him and me teamed up pretty well.  That was all.
+It was always you, Jim, that I cared for.  But, somehow, now, I wish
+I'd loved Dick--more than I did.  I feel different, now.  I wish--oh, I
+wish--that I'd loved him!"
+
+The man frowned.
+
+"He's dead," she continued.  "I can't tell him nothing, now.  The
+chance is gone.  But I wish I'd loved him!"
+
+"He never done much for you."
+
+"Yes, he did, Jim!" she answered, quickly.  "He done all a man can do
+for a woman!"
+
+She was smiling--but in an absent way.  The man started.  There was a
+light in her eyes he had never seen before.
+
+"He give me," she said, "the boy!"
+
+"You're crazy about that kid," the man burst out, a violent, disgusted
+whisper.  "You're gone out of your mind."
+
+"No, I ain't," she replied, doggedly.  "I'm different since I got him.
+That's all.  And I'd like Dick to know that I look at him different
+since he died.  I can't love Dick.  I never could.  But I could thank
+him if he was here.  Do you mind what I called the boy?  I don't call
+him Claud now.  I call him--Richard.  It's all I can do to show Dick
+that I'm grateful."
+
+The man caught his breath--in angry impatience.   "Millie,"  he warned,
+"the boy'll grow up."
+
+She put her hands to her eyes.
+
+"He'll grow up and leave you.  What you going to do then?"
+
+"I don't know," she sighed.  "Just--go along."
+
+"You'll be all alone, Millie."
+
+"He loves me!" she muttered.  "He'll never leave me!"
+
+"He's got to, Millie.  He's got to be a man.  You can't keep him."
+
+"Maybe I _can't_ keep him," she replied, in a passionate undertone.
+"Maybe I _do_ love you.  Maybe he'd get to love you, too.  But look at
+him, Jim! See where he lies?"
+
+The man turned towards the bed.
+
+"It's on my side, Jim!  Understand?  He lies there always till I come
+in.  Know why?"
+
+He watched her curiously.
+
+"He'll wake up, Jim, when I lift him over.  That's what he wants.
+He'll wake up and say, 'Is that you, mother?'  And he'll be asleep
+again, God bless him! before I can tell him that it is.  My God!  Jim,
+I can't tell you what it means to come in at night and find him lying
+there.  That little body of a man!  That clean, white soul! I can't
+tell you how I feel, Jim.  It's something a man can't know.  And do you
+think he'd stand for you?  He'd say he would.  Oh, he'd say he would!
+He'd look in my eyes, Jim, and he'd find out what I wanted him to say;
+and he'd _say_ it.  But, Jim, he'd be hurt.  Understand?  He'd think I
+didn't love him any more.  He's only a child--and he'd think I didn't
+love him.  Where'd he sleep, Jim?  Alone?  He couldn't do it.  Don't
+you _see_?  I can't live with nobody, Jim.  And I don't want to.  I
+don't care for myself no more.  I used to, in them days--when you and
+me and Dick and the crowd was all together.  But I don't--no more!"
+
+The man stooped, picked a small stocking from the floor, stood staring
+at it.
+
+"I'm changed," the woman repeated, "since I got the boy."
+
+"I don't know what you'll do, Millie, when he grows up."
+
+She shook her head.
+
+"And when he finds out?"
+
+"That's what I'm afraid of," she whispered, hoarsely.  "Somebody'll
+tell him--some day.  He don't know, now.  And I don't want him to know.
+He ain't our kind.  Maybe it's because I keep him here alone.  Maybe
+it's because he don't see nobody.  Maybe it's just because I love him
+so.  I don't know.  But he ain't like us.  It would hurt him to know.
+And I can't hurt him.  I can't!"
+
+The man tossed the stocking away.  It fell upon a heap of little
+under-garments, strewn upon the floor.
+
+"You're a fool, Millie," said he.  "I tell you, he'll leave you.  He'll
+leave you cold--when he grows up--and another woman comes along."
+
+She raised her hand to stop him.  "Don't say that!" she moaned.  "There
+won't be no other woman.  There can't be.  Seems to me I'll want to
+kill the first that comes.  A woman?  What woman?  There won't be none."
+
+"There's _got_ to be a woman."
+
+"What woman?  There ain't a woman in the world fit to--oh," she broke
+off, "don't talk of _him_--and a woman!"
+
+"It'll come, Millie.  He's a man--and there's got to be a woman.  And
+she won't want you.  And you'll be too old, then, to----"
+
+The boy stirred.
+
+"Hist!" she commanded.
+
+They waited.  An arm was tossed--the boy smiled--there was a sigh.  He
+was sound asleep again.
+
+"Millie!"  The man approached.  She straightened to resist him.  "You
+love me, don't you?"
+
+She withdrew.
+
+"You want to marry me?"
+
+Still she withdrew; but he overtook her, and caught her hand.  She was
+now driven to a corner--at bay.  Her face was flushed; there was an
+irresolute light in her eyes--the light, too, of fear.
+
+"Go 'way!" she gasped.  "Leave me alone!"
+
+He put his arm about her.
+
+"Don't!" she moaned.  "You'll wake the boy."
+
+"Millie!" he whispered.
+
+"Let me go, Jim!" she protested, weakly.  "I can't.  Oh, leave me
+alone!  You'll wake the boy.  I can't.  I'd like to.  I--I--I want to
+marry you; but I----"
+
+"Aw, come on!" he pleaded, drawing her close.  And he suddenly found
+her limp in his arms.  "You got to marry me!" he whispered, in triumph.
+"By God! you can't help yourself.  I got you!  I got you!"
+
+"Oh, let me go!"
+
+"No, I won't, Millie.  I'll never let you go."
+
+"For God's sake, Jim!  Jim--oh, don't kiss me!"
+
+The boy stirred again--and began to mutter in his sleep.  At once the
+woman commanded herself.  She stiffened--released herself--pushed the
+man away.  She lifted a hand--until the child lay quiet once more.
+There was meantime breathless silence.  Then she pointed imperiously to
+the door.  The man sullenly held his place.  She tiptoed to the
+door--opened it; again imperiously gestured.  He would not stir.
+
+"I'll go," he whispered, "if you tell me I can come back."
+
+The boy awoke--but was yet blinded by sleep; and the room was dim-lit.
+He rubbed his eyes.  The man and the woman stood rigid in the shadow.
+
+"Is it you, mother?"
+
+There was no resisting her command--her flashing eyes, the passionate
+gesture.  The man moved to the door, muttering that he would come
+back--and disappeared.  She closed the door after him.
+
+"Yes, dear," she answered.  "It is your mother."
+
+"Was there a man with you?"
+
+"It was Lord Wychester," she said, brightly, "seeing me home from the
+party."
+
+"Oh!" he yawned.
+
+"Go to sleep."
+
+He fell asleep at once.  The stair creaked.  The tenement was again
+quiet....
+
+
+He was lying in his mother's place in the bed....  She looked out upon
+the river.  Somewhere, far below in the darkness, the current still ran
+swirling to the sea--where the lights go different ways....  The boy
+was lying in his mother's place.  And before she lifted him, she took
+his warm little hand, and kissed his brow, where the dark curls lay
+damp with the sweat of sleep.  For a long, long time, she sat watching
+him through a mist of glad tears.  The sight of his face, the outline
+of his body under the white coverlet, the touch of his warm flesh: all
+this thrilled her inexpressibly.  Had she been devout, she would have
+thanked God for the gift of a son--and would have found relief....
+When she crept in beside him, she drew him to her, tenderly still
+closer, until he was all contained in her arms; and she forgot all
+else--and fell asleep, untroubled.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _At Midnight_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Meeting by Chance_]
+
+
+
+
+_A MEETING BY CHANCE_
+
+Came, then, into the lives of these two, to work wide and immediate
+changes, the Rev. John Fithian, a curate of the Church of the Lifted
+Cross--a tall, free-moving, delicately spare figure, clad in spotless
+black, with a hint of fashion about it, a dull gold crucifix lying
+suspended upon the breast: pale, long of face, the eye-sockets deep and
+shadowy; hollow-cheeked, the bones high and faintly touched with red;
+with black, straight, damp hair, brushed back from a smooth brow and
+falling in the perfection of neatness to the collar--the whole severe
+and forbidding, indeed, but for saving gray eyes, wherein there lurked,
+behind the patient agony, often displacing it, a tender smile,
+benignant, comprehending, infinitely sympathetic, by which the gloomy
+exterior was lightened and in some surprising way gratefully explained.
+
+
+By chance, on the first soft spring day of that year, the Rev. John
+Fithian, returning from the Neighbourhood Settlement, where he had
+delighted himself with good deeds, done of pure purpose, came near the
+door of the Box Street tenement, distributing smiles, pennies,
+impulsive, genuine caresses, to the children as he went, tipping their
+faces, patting their heads, all in the rare, unquestioned way, being
+not alien to the manner of the poor.  A street piano, at the corner,
+tinkled an air to which a throng of ragged, lean little girls danced in
+the yellow sunshine, dodging trucks and idlers and impatient
+pedestrians with unconcern, colliding and tripping with utmost good
+nature.  The curate was arrested by the voice of a child, singing to
+the corner accompaniment--low, in the beginning, brooding, tentative,
+but in a moment rising sure and clear and tender.  It was not hard for
+the Rev. John Fithian to slip a cassock and surplice upon this wistful
+child, to give him a background of lofty arches and stained windows, to
+frame the whole in shadows.  And, lo! in the chancel of the Church of
+the Lifted Cross there stood an angel, singing.
+
+The boy looked up, a glance of suspicion, of fear; but he was at once
+reassured: there was no guile in the smiling gray eyes of the
+questioner.
+
+"I am waiting," he answered, "for my mother.  She will be home soon."
+
+In a swift, penetrating glance, darting far and deep, dwelling briefly,
+the curate discovered the pathos of the child's life--the unknowing,
+patient outlook, the vague sense of pain, the bewilderment, the wistful
+melancholy, the hopeful determination.
+
+"You, too!" he sighed.
+
+The expression of kindred was not comprehended; but the boy was not
+disquieted by the sigh, by the sudden extinguishment of the beguiling
+smile.
+
+"She has gone," he continued, "to the wedding of Sir Arthur Coll and
+Miss Stillison.  She will have a very good time."
+
+The curate came to himself with a start and a gasp.
+
+"She's a bridesmaid," the boy added.
+
+"Oh!" ejaculated the curate.
+
+"Why do you say, 'Oh!'" the boy complained, frowning.  "Everybody says
+that," he went on, wistfully; "and I don't know why."
+
+The curate was a gentleman--acute and courteous.  "A touch of
+indigestion," he answered, promptly, laying a white hand on his black
+waistcoat.  "Oh!  There it is again!"
+
+"Stomach ache?"
+
+"Well, you might call it that."
+
+The boy was much concerned.  "If you come up-stairs," said he,
+anxiously, "I'll give you some medicine.  Mother keeps it for me."
+
+Thus, presently, the curate found himself top-floor rear, in the room
+that overlooked the broad river, the roofs of the city beyond, the
+misty hills: upon which the fading sunshine now fell.  And having
+gratefully swallowed the dose, with a broad, persistent smile, he was
+given a seat by the window, that the beauty of the day, the
+companionship of the tiny craft on the river, the mystery of the
+far-off places, might distract and comfort him.  From the boy, sitting
+upright and prim on the extreme edge of a chair, his feet on the rung,
+his hands on his knees, proceeded a stream of amiable chatter--not the
+less amiable for being grave--to which the curate, compelled to his
+best behavior, listened with attention as amiable, as grave: and this
+concerned the boats, afloat below, the lights on the river, the child's
+mother, the simple happenings of his secluded life.  So untaught was
+this courtesy, spontaneous, native--so did it spring from natural wish
+and perception--that the curate was soon more mystified than
+entertained; and so did the curate's smile increase in gratification
+and sympathy that the child was presently off the chair, lingering half
+abashed in the curate's neighbourhood, soon seated familiarly upon his
+knee, toying with the dull gold crucifix.
+
+"What's this?" he asked.
+
+"It is the symbol," the curate answered, "of the sacrifice of our dear
+Lord and Saviour."
+
+There was no meaning in the words; but the boy held the cross very
+tenderly, and looked long upon the face of the Man there in
+torture--and was grieved and awed by the agony....
+
+
+In the midst of this, the boy's mother entered.  She stopped dead
+beyond the threshold--warned by the unexpected presence to be upon her
+guard.  Her look of amazement changed to a scowl of suspicion.  The
+curate put the boy from his knee.  He rose--embarrassed.  There was a
+space of ominous silence.
+
+"What you doing here?" the woman demanded.
+
+"Trespassing."
+
+She was puzzled--by the word, the smile, the quiet voice.  The whole
+was a new, nonplussing experience.  Her suspicion was aggravated.
+
+"What you been telling the boy?  Eh?  What you been saying about me?
+Hear me?  Ain't you got no tongue?"  She turned to the frightened
+child.  "Richard," she continued, her voice losing all its quality of
+anger, "what lies has this man been telling you about your poor mother?"
+
+The boy kept a bewildered silence.
+
+"What you been lying about?" the woman exclaimed, advancing upon the
+curate, her eyes blazing.
+
+"I have been telling," he answered, still gravely smiling, "the truth."
+
+Her anger was halted--but she was not pacified.
+
+"Telling," the curate repeated, with a little pause, "the truth."
+
+"You been talking about _me_, eh?"
+
+"No; it was of your late husband."
+
+She started.
+
+"I am a curate of the Church of the Lifted Cross," the curate
+continued, with unruffled composure, "and I have been telling the exact
+truth concerning----"
+
+"You been lying!" the woman broke in.  "Yes, you have!"
+
+"No--not so," he insisted.  "The exact truth concerning the funeral of
+Dick Slade from the Church of the Lilted Cross.  Your son has told me
+of his father's death--of the funeral, And I have told your son that I
+distinctly remember the occasion.  I have told him, moreover," he
+added, putting a hand on the boy's shoulder, his eyes faintly
+twinkling, "that his father was--ah--as I recall him--of most
+distinguished appearance."
+
+She was completely disarmed.
+
+
+When, after an agreeable interval, the Rev. John Fithian took his
+leave, the boy's mother followed him from the room, and closed the door
+upon the boy.  "I'm glad," she faltered, "that you didn't give me away.
+It was--kind.  But I'm sorry you lied--like that.  You didn't have to,
+you know.  He's only a child.  It's easy to fool him.  _You_ wouldn't
+have to lie.  But I _got_ to lie.  It makes him happy--and there's
+things he mustn't know.  He _must_ be happy.  I can't stand it when he
+ain't.  It hurts me so.  But," she added, looking straight into his
+eyes, gratefully, "you didn't have to lie.  And--it was kind."  Her
+eyes fell.  "It was--awful kind."
+
+"I may come again?"
+
+She stared at the floor.  "Come again?" she muttered.  "I don't know."
+
+"I should very much like to come."
+
+"What do you want?" she asked, looking up.  "It ain't _me_, is it?"
+
+The curate shook his head.
+
+"Well, what do you want?  I thought you was from the Society.  I
+thought you was an agent come to take him away because I wasn't fit to
+keep him.  But it ain't that.  And it ain't _me_.  What is it you want,
+anyhow?"
+
+"To come again."
+
+She turned away.  He patiently waited.  All at once she looked into his
+eyes, long, deep, intensely--a scrutiny of his very soul.
+
+"You got a good name to keep, ain't you?" she asked.
+
+"Yes," he answered.  "And you?"
+
+"It don't matter about me."
+
+"And I may come?"
+
+"Yes," she whispered.
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Renunciation_]
+
+
+
+
+_RENUNCIATION_
+
+After that the curate came often to the room in the Box Street
+tenement; but beyond the tenants of top floor rear he did not allow the
+intimacy to extend--not even to embrace the quaintly love-lorn Mr.
+Poddle.  It was now summer; the window was open to the west wind,
+blowing in from the sea.  Most the curate came at evening, when the
+breeze was cool and clean, and the lights began to twinkle in the
+gathering shadows: then to sit at the window, describing unrealities,
+not conceived in the world of the listeners; and these new and
+beautiful thoughts, melodiously voiced in the twilight, filled the
+hours with wonder and strange delight.  Sometimes, the boy sang--his
+mother, too, and the curate: a harmony of tender voices, lifted softly.
+And once, when the songs were all sung, and the boy had slipped away to
+the comfort of Mr. Poddle, who was now ill abed with his restless
+lungs, the curate turned resolutely to the woman.
+
+"I want the boy's voice," he said.
+
+She gave no sign of agitation.  "His voice?" she asked, quietly.
+"Ain't the boy's _self_ nothing to your church?"
+
+"Not," he answered, "to the church."
+
+"Not to you?"
+
+"It is very much," he said, gravely, "to me."
+
+"Well?"
+
+He lifted his eyebrows--in amazed comprehension.  "I must say, then,"
+he said, bending eagerly towards her, "that I want the boy?"
+
+"The boy," she answered.
+
+For a little while she was silent--vacantly contemplating the bare
+floor.  There had been no revelation.  She was not taken unaware.  She
+had watched his purpose form.  Long before, she had perceived the issue
+approaching, and had bravely met it.  But it was all now definite and
+near.  She found it hard to command her feeling--bitter to cut the
+trammels of her love for the child.
+
+"You got to pay, you know," she said, looking up.  "Boy sopranos is
+scarce.  You can't have him cheap."
+
+"Of course!" he hastened to say.  "The church will pay."
+
+"Money?  It ain't money I want."
+
+To this there was nothing to say.  The curate was in the dark--and
+quietly awaited enlightenment.
+
+"Take him!" she burst out, rising.  "My God! just you take him.  That's
+all I want.  Understand me?  I want to get rid of him."
+
+He watched her in amazement.  For a time she wandered about the room,
+distraught, quite aimless: now tragically pausing; now brushing her
+hand over her eyes--a gesture of weariness and despair.  Then she faced
+him.
+
+"Take him," she said, her voice hoarse.  "Take him away from me.  I
+ain't fit to have him.  Understand?  He's got to grow up into a man.
+And I can't teach him how.  Take him.  Take him altogether.  Make
+him--like yourself.  Before you come," she proceeded, now feverishly
+pacing the floor, "I never knew that men was good.  No man ever looked
+in my eyes the way you do.  I know them--oh, I know them! And when my
+boy grows up, I want him to look in the eyes of women the way you
+look--in mine.  Just that!  Only that!  If only, oh, if only my son
+will look in the eyes of women the way you look in mine!  Understand?
+I _want_ him to.  But I can't teach him how.  I don't know enough.  I
+ain't good enough."
+
+The curate rose.
+
+"You can't take his voice and leave his soul," she went on.  "You got
+to take his soul.  You got to make it--like your own."
+
+"Not like mine!"
+
+"Just," she said, passionately, "like yours.  Don't you warn me!" she
+flashed.  "I know the difference between your soul and mine.  I know
+that when his soul is like yours he won't love me no more.  But I can't
+help that.  I got to do without him.  I got to live my life--and let
+him live his.  It's the way with mothers and sons.  God help the
+mothers!  It's the way of the world....  And he'll go with you," she
+added.  "I'll get him so he'll be glad to go.  It won't be nice to
+do--but I can do it.  Maybe you think I can't.  Maybe you think I love
+him too much.  It ain't that I love him too much.  It's because I love
+him _enough_!"
+
+"You offer the boy to me?"
+
+"Will you take him--voice and soul?"
+
+"I will take him," said the curate, "soul and voice."
+
+She began at once to practice upon the boy's love for her--this
+skillfully, persistently: without pity for herself or him.  She sighed,
+wept, sat gloomy for hours together: nor would she explain her sorrow,
+but relentlessly left it to deal with his imagination, by which it was
+magnified and touched with the horror of mystery.  It was not
+hard--thus to feign sadness, terror, despair: to hint misfortune,
+parting, unalterable love.  Nor could the boy withstand it; by this
+depression he was soon reduced to a condition of apprehension and grief
+wherein self-sacrifice was at one with joyful opportunity.  Dark days,
+these--hours of agony, premonition, fearful expectation.  And when they
+had sufficiently wrought upon him, she was ready to proceed.
+
+One night she took him in her lap, in the old close way, in which he
+loved to be held, and sat rocking, for a time, silently.
+
+"Let us talk, dear," she said.
+
+"I think I'm too sick," he sighed.  "I just want to lie here--and not
+talk."
+
+He had but expressed her own desire--to have him lie there: not to
+talk, but just to feel him lying in her arms.
+
+"We must," she said.
+
+Something in her voice--something distinguishable from the recent days
+as deep and real--aroused the boy.  He touched the lashes of her
+eyes--and found them wet.
+
+"Why are you crying?" he asked.  "Oh, tell me, mother!  Tell me _now_!"
+
+She did not answer.
+
+"I'm sick," he muttered.  "I--I--think I'm very sick."
+
+"Something has happened, dear," she said.  "I'm going to tell you
+what."  She paused--and in the pause felt his body grow tense in a
+familiar way.  For a moment the prospect frightened her.  She felt,
+vaguely, that she was playing with that which was infinitely
+delicate--which might break in her very hands, and leave her desolate.
+"You know, dear," she continued, faltering, "we used to be very rich.
+But we're not, any more."  It was a poor lie--she realized that: and
+was half ashamed.  "We're very poor, now," she went on, hurriedly.  "A
+man broke into the bank and stole all your mother's gold and diamonds
+and lovely dresses.  She hasn't anything--any more."  She had conceived
+a vast contempt for the lie; she felt that it was a weak, unpracticed
+thing--but she knew that it was sufficient: for he had never yet
+doubted her.  "So I don't know what she'll do," she concluded, weakly.
+"She will have to stop having good times, I guess.  She will have to go
+to work."
+
+He straightened in her lap.  "No, no!" he cried, gladly.  "_I'll_ work!"
+
+Her impulse was to express her delight in his manliness, her triumphant
+consciousness of his love--to kiss him, to hug him until he cried out
+with pain.  But she restrained all this--harshly, pitilessly.  She had
+no mercy upon herself.
+
+"I'll work!" he repeated.
+
+"How?" she asked.  "You don't know how."
+
+"Teach me."
+
+She laughed--an ironical little laugh: designed to humiliate him.
+"Why," she exclaimed, "I don't know how to teach you!"
+
+He sighed.
+
+"But," she added, significantly, "the curate knows."
+
+"Then," said he, taking hope, "the curate will teach me."
+
+"Yes; but----"
+
+"But what?  Tell me quick, mother!"
+
+"Well," she hesitated, "the curate is so busy.  Anyhow, dear," she
+continued, "I would have to work.  We are very poor.  You see, dear, it
+takes a great deal of money to buy new clothes for you.  And, then,
+dear, you see----"
+
+He waited--somewhat disturbed by the sudden failure of her voice.  It
+was all becoming bitter to her, now; she found it hard to continue.
+
+"You see," she gasped, "you eat--quite a bit."
+
+"I'll not eat much," he promised.  "And I'll not want new clothes.  And
+it won't take long for the curate to teach me how to work."
+
+She would not agree.
+
+"Tell me!" he commanded.
+
+"Yes," she said; "but the curate says he wants you to live with him."
+
+"Would you come, too?"
+
+"No," she answered.
+
+He did not yet comprehend.  "Would I go--alone?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"All alone?"
+
+"Alone!"
+
+Quiet fell upon all the world--in the twilighted room, in the tenement,
+in the falling night without, where no breeze moved.  The child sought
+to get closer within his mother's arms, nearer to her bosom--then
+stirred no more.  The lights were flashing into life on the
+river--wandering aimlessly: but yet drifting to the sea....  Some one
+stumbled past the door--grumbling maudlin wrath.
+
+"There is no other way," the mother said.
+
+There was no response--a shiver, subsiding at once: no more than that.
+
+"And I would go to see you--quite often."
+
+She tried to see his face; but it was hid against her.
+
+"It would be better," she whispered, "for you."
+
+"Oh, mother," he sobbed, sitting back in her lap, "what would you do
+without me?"
+
+It was a crucial question--so appealing in unselfish love, so vividly
+portraying her impending desolation, that for an instant her resolution
+departed.  What would she do without him?  God knew! But she commanded
+herself.
+
+"I would not have to work," she said.
+
+He turned her face to the light--looked deep in her eyes, searching for
+the truth.  She met his glance without wavering.  Then, discerning the
+effect, deliberately, when his eyes were alight with filial love and
+concern, at the moment when the sacrifice was most clear and most
+poignant, she lied.
+
+"I would be happier," she said, "without you."
+
+A moan escaped him.
+
+"Will you go with the curate?" she asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+He fell back upon her bosom....
+
+
+There was no delay.  'Twas all done in haste.  The night came.  Gently
+the curate took the child from her arms.
+
+"Good-bye," she said.
+
+"I said I would not cry, mother," he faltered.  "I am not crying."
+
+"Good-bye, dear."
+
+"Mother, I am not crying."
+
+"You are very brave," she said, discovering his wish.  "Good-bye.  Be a
+good boy."
+
+He took the curate's hand.  They moved to the door--but there turned
+and lingered.  While the child looked upon his mother, bravely calling
+a smile to his face, that she might be comforted, there crept into his
+eyes, against his will, some reproach.  Perceiving this, she staggered
+towards him, but halted at the table, which she clutched: and there
+stood, her head hanging forward, her body swaying.  Then she levelled a
+finger at the curate.
+
+"Take him away, you damn fool!" she screamed.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Renunciation_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _In the Current_]
+
+
+
+
+_IN THE CURRENT_
+
+Seven o'clock struck.  It made no impression upon her.  Eight
+o'clock--nine o'clock.  It was now dark.  Ten o'clock.  She did not
+hear.  Still at the window, her elbow on the sill, her chin resting in
+her hand, she kept watch on the river--but did not see the river: but
+saw the sea, wind-tossed and dark, where the lights go wide apart.
+Eleven o'clock.  Ghostly moonlight filled the room.  The tenement,
+restless in the summer heat, now sighed and fell asleep.  Twelve
+o'clock.  She had not moved: nor dared she move.  There was a knock at
+the door--a quick step behind her.  She turned in alarm.
+
+"Millie!"
+
+She rose.  Voice and figure were well known to her.  She started
+forward--but stopped dead.
+
+"Is it you, Jim?" she faltered.
+
+"Yes, Millie.  It's me--come back.  You don't feel the way you did
+before, do you, girl?"  He suddenly subdued his voice--as though
+recollecting a caution.  "You ain't going to send me away, are you?" he
+asked.
+
+"Go 'way!" she complained.  "Leave me alone."
+
+He came nearer.
+
+"Give me a show, Jim," she begged.  "Go 'way.  It ain't fair to
+come--now.  Hear me?" she cried, in protest against his nearer
+approach, her voice rising shrilly.  "It ain't fair----"
+
+"Hist!" he interrupted.  "You'll wake the----"
+
+She laughed harshly.  "Wake what?" she mocked.  "Eh, Jim?  What'll I
+wake?"
+
+"Why, Millie!" he exclaimed.  "You'll wake the boy."
+
+"Boy!" she laughed.  "What boy?  There ain't no boy.  Look here!" she
+cried, rushing impetuously to the bed, throwing back the coverlet,
+wildly tossing the pillows to the floor.  "What'll I wake?  Eh, Jim?
+Where's the boy I'll wake?"  She turned upon him.  "What you saying
+'Hist!' for?  Hist!" she mocked, with a laugh.  "Talk as loud as you
+like, Jim.  You don't need to care what you say or how you say it.
+There ain't nobody here to mind you.  For I tell you," she stormed,
+"there ain't no boy--no more!"
+
+He caught her hand.
+
+"Let go my hand!" she commanded.  "Keep off, Jim!  I ain't in no temper
+to stand it--to-night."
+
+He withdrew.  "Millie," he asked, in distress, "the boy ain't----"
+
+"Dead?" she laughed.  "No.  I give him away.  He was different from us.
+I didn't have no right to keep him.  I give him to a parson.  Because,"
+she added, defiantly, "I wasn't fit to bring him up.  And he ain't here
+no more," she sighed, blankly sweeping the moonlit room.  "I'm all
+alone--now."
+
+"Poor girl!" he muttered.
+
+She was tempted by this sympathy.  "Go home, Jim," she said.  "It ain't
+fair to stay.  I'm all alone, now--and it ain't treating me right."
+
+"Millie," he answered, "you ain't treating yourself right."
+
+She flung out her arms--in dissent and hopelessness.
+
+"No, you ain't," he continued.  "You've give him up.  You're all alone.
+You can't go on--alone.  Millie, girl," he pleaded, softly, "I want
+you.  Come to me!"
+
+She wavered.
+
+"Come to me!" he repeated, his voice tremulous, his arms extended.
+"You're all alone.  You've lost him.  Come to me!"
+
+"Lost him?" she mused.  "No--not that.  If I'd lost him, Jim, I'd take
+you.  If ever he looked in my eyes--as if I'd lost him--I'd take you.
+I've give him up; but I ain't lost him.  Maybe," she proceeded,
+eagerly, "when the time comes, he'll not give me up.  He loves me, Jim;
+he'll not forget.  I know he's different from us.  You can't tell a
+mother nothing about such things as that.  God!" she muttered, clasping
+her hands, "how strangely different he is.  And every day he'll change.
+Every day he'll be--more different.  That's what I want.  That's why I
+give him up.  To make him--more different!  But maybe," she continued,
+her voice rising with the intensity of her feeling, "when he grows up,
+and the time comes--maybe, Jim, when he can't be made no more
+different--maybe, when I go to him, man grown--are you
+listening?--maybe, when I ask him if he loves me, he'll remember!
+Maybe, he'll take me in.  Lost him?" she asked.  "How do you know that?
+Go to you, Jim?  Go to you, now--when he might take me in if I wait?  I
+can't! Don't you understand?  When the time comes, he might ask
+me--where you was."
+
+"You're crazy, Millie," the man protested.  "You're just plain crazy."
+
+"Crazy?  Maybe, I am.  To love and hope!  Crazy?  Maybe, I am.  But,
+Jim, mothers is all that way."
+
+"All that way?" he asked, regarding her with a speculative eye.
+
+"Mothers," she repeated, "is all that way."
+
+"Well," said he, swiftly advancing, "lovers isn't."
+
+"Keep back!" she cried.
+
+"No, I won't."
+
+"You'll make a cat of me.  I warn you, Jim!"
+
+"You can't keep me off.  You said you loved me.  You do love me.  You
+can't help yourself.  You got to marry me."
+
+She retreated.  "Leave me alone!" she screamed.  "I can't.  Don't you
+see how it is?  Quit that, now, Jim!  You ain't fair.  Take your arms
+away.  God help me!  I love you, you great big brute!  You know I do.
+You ain't fair....  Stop!  You hurt me."  She was now in his arms--but
+still resisting.  "Leave me alone,"  she whimpered.  "You hurt me.  You
+ain't fair.  You know I love you--and you ain't fair....  Oh, God
+forgive me!  Don't do that again, Jim.  Stop!  Let me go.  For God's
+sake, stop kissing me!  I like you, Jim.  I ain't denying that.  But
+let me go....  Please, Jim!  Don't hold me so tight.  It ain't fair....
+Oh, it ain't fair...."
+
+She sank against his broad breast; and there she lay helpless--bitterly
+sobbing.
+
+"Don't cry, Millie!" he whispered.
+
+Still she sobbed.
+
+"Oh, don't cry, girl!" he repeated, tenderly.  "It's all right.  I
+won't hurt you.  You love me, and I love you.  That's all right,
+Millie.  What's the matter with you, girl?  Lift your face, won't you?"
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"Why not, Millie?"
+
+"I don't know," she whispered.  "I think I'm--ashamed."
+
+There was no longer need to hold her fast.  His arms relaxed.  She did
+not move from them.  And while they stood thus, in the moonlight,
+falling brightly through the window, he stroked her hair, murmuring,
+the while, all the reassuring words at his command.
+
+"The boy's gone," he said, at last.  "You'd be all alone without me.
+He ain't here.  But he's well looked after, Millie.  Don't you fret
+about him.  By this time he's sound asleep."
+
+She slipped from his embrace.  He made no effort to detain her:
+conceiving her secure in his possession.  A moment she stood staring at
+the floor, lost to her surroundings: then quickly turned to look upon
+him--her face aglow with some high tenderness.
+
+"Asleep?" she asked, her voice low, tremulous.
+
+"Sound asleep."
+
+"How do you know that he's asleep?" she pursued.  "Asleep?  No; he
+ain't asleep."  She paused--now woebegone.  "He's wide awake--waiting,"
+she went on.  "He's waiting--just like he used to do--for me to come
+in....  He's awake.  Oh, sore little heart!  He's lying alone in the
+dark--waiting.  And his mother will not come....  Last night, Jim, when
+I come in, he was there in the bed, awake and waiting.  'Oh, mother,'
+says he, 'I'm glad you're come at last.  I been waiting so long.  It's
+lonesome here in the dark without you.  And to-morrow I'll wake, and
+wait, and wait; but you will not come!'  He's awake, Jim.  Don't you
+tell me no different.  The pillow's wet with his tears....  Lonely
+child--waiting for me!  Oh, little heart of my baby!  Oh, sore little
+heart!"
+
+"Millie!"
+
+"It ain't no use no more, Jim.  You better go home.  I'm all alone.  My
+child's not here.  But--he's somewhere.  And it's him I love."
+
+The man sighed and went away....
+
+
+Left alone, she put the little room in order and made the bed, blinded
+by tears, her steps uncertain: muttering incoherently of her child,
+whimpering broken snatches of lullaby songs.  When there was no more
+work left for her hands to do, she staggered to the bureau, and from
+the lower drawer took a great, flaunting doll, which she had there
+kept, poor soul! against the time when her arms would be empty, her
+bosom aching for a familiar weight upon it.  And for a time she sat
+rocking the cold counterfeit, crooning, faintly singing, caressing it;
+but she had known the warmth, the sweet restlessness, the soft,
+yielding form of the living child, and could not be content.
+Presently, in a surge of disgust, she flung the substitute violently
+from her.
+
+"It ain't no baby," she moaned, putting her hands to her face.  "It's
+only a doll!"
+
+She sank limp to the floor.  There she lay prone--the moonlight falling
+softly upon her, but healing her not at all.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _In the Current_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Chorister_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE CHORISTER_
+
+The Rev. John Fithian lived alone with a man-servant in a
+wide-windowed, sombre, red old house, elbowed by tenements, near the
+Church of the Lifted Cross--once a fashionable quarter: now mean,
+dejected, incongruously thronged, and fast losing the last appearances
+of respectability.  Sombre without--half-lit, silent, vast within: the
+whole intolerant of frivolity, inharmony, garishness, ugliness, but yet
+quite free of gloom and ghostly suggestion.  The boy tiptoed over the
+thick carpets, spoke in whispers, eyed the shadowy corners--sensitive
+to impressions, forever alert: nevertheless possessing a fine feeling
+of security and hopefulness; still wistful, often weeping in the night,
+but not melancholy.  Responsive to environment, by nature harmonious
+with his new surroundings, he presently moved through the lofty old
+rooms with a manner reflecting their own--the same gravity, serenity,
+old-fashioned grace: expressing even their stateliness in a quaint and
+childish way.  Thus was the soil of his heart prepared for the seed of
+a great change.
+
+
+By and by the curate enlightened the child concerning sin and the
+Vicarious Sacrifice.  This was when the leaves were falling from the
+trees in the park--a drear, dark night: the wind sweeping the streets
+in violent gusts, the rain lashing the windowpanes.  Night had come
+unnoticed--swiftly, intensely: in the curate's study a change from gray
+twilight to firelit shadows.  The boy was squatted on the hearth-rug,
+disquieted by the malicious beating at the window, glad to be in the
+glow of the fire: his visions all of ragged men and women cowering from
+the weather.
+
+"It is time, now," the curate sighed, "that I told you the story."
+
+"What story?"
+
+"The story of the Man who died for us."
+
+The boy turned--in wonderment.  "I did not know," he said, quickly,
+"that a man had died for us.  What was his name?  Why did he do it?  My
+mother never told me that story."
+
+"I think she does not know it."
+
+"Then I'll tell her when I learn."
+
+"Perhaps," said the curate, "she will like to hear it--from you."
+
+Very gently, then, in his deep, mellifluous voice--while the rain beat
+upon the windows, crying out the sorrows of the poor--the curate
+unfolded the poignant story: the terms simple, the recital clear,
+vivid, complete....  And to the heart of this child the appeal was
+immediate and irresistible.
+
+"And they who sin," the curate concluded, "crucify Him again."
+
+"I love that Jesus!" the boy sobbed.  "I love Him--almost as much as
+mother."
+
+"Almost?"
+
+The boy misunderstood.  He felt reproved.  He flushed--ashamed that the
+new love had menaced the old.  "No," he answered; "but I love Him very
+much."
+
+"Not as much?"
+
+"Oh, I could not!"
+
+The boy was never afterwards the same.  All that was inharmonious in
+life--the pain and poverty and unloveliness--became as sin: a
+continuous crucifixion, hateful, wringing the heart....
+
+
+Late in the night, when he lay sleepless, sick for his mother's
+presence, her voice, her kisses, her soothing touch, the boy would rise
+to sit at the window--there to watch shadowy figures flit through the
+street-lamp's circle of light.  Once he fancied that his mother came
+thus out of the night, that for a moment she paused with upturned
+glance, then disappeared in woe and haste: returning, halted again; but
+came no more....
+
+
+At rare intervals the boy's mother came to the curate's door.  She
+would not enter: but timidly waited for her son, and then went with him
+to the park, relieved to be away from the wide, still house, her
+spirits and self-confidence reviving with every step.  One mellow
+evening, while they sat together in the dusk, an ill-clad man, gray and
+unkempt, shuffled near.
+
+"Mother," the boy whispered, gripping her hand, "he is looking at us."
+
+She laughed.  "Let him look!" said she.  "It don't matter."
+
+The man staggered to the bench--heavily sat down: limp and shameless,
+his head hanging.
+
+"Let us go away!" the boy pleaded.
+
+"Why, darling?" his mother asked, puzzled.  "What's the matter with
+you, anyhow?"  She looked at him--realizing some subtle change in him,
+bewildered by it: searching eagerly for the nature and cause.  "You
+didn't used to be like that," she said.
+
+"I don't like him.  He's wicked.  He frightens me."
+
+The man slipped suddenly from the bench--sprawling upon the walk.  The
+woman laughed.
+
+"Don't laugh!" the boy exclaimed--a cry of reproach, not free of
+indignation.  "Oh, mother," he complained, putting her hand to his
+cheek, "how could you!"
+
+She did not answer.  The derelict picked himself up, whining in a
+maudlin way.
+
+"How could you!" the boy repeated.
+
+"Oh," said she, lightly, "he's all right.  He won't hurt us."
+
+"He's wicked!"
+
+"He's drunk.  It don't matter.  What's come over you, dear?"
+
+"I'm afraid," said the boy.  "He's sinful."
+
+"He's only drunk, poor man!"
+
+High over the houses beyond, the steeple of the Church of the Lifted
+Cross pierced the blue-black sky.  It was tipped with a blazing
+cross--a great cross, flaming in the night: a symbol of sacrifice, a
+hope, a protest, raised above the feverish world.  To this the boy
+looked.  It transported him far from the woman whose hand he clutched.
+
+"They who sin," he muttered, his eyes still turned to the lifted cross,
+"crucify the dear Lord again!"
+
+His mother was both mystified and appalled.  She followed his
+glance--but saw only the familiar landmark: an illuminated cross,
+topping a steeple.
+
+"For God's sake, Richard!" she demanded, "what you talking about?"
+
+He did not hear.
+
+"You ain't sick, are you?" she continued.
+
+He shook his head.
+
+"What's the matter with you?" she implored.  "Oh, tell your mother!"
+
+He loosened his hand from her clasp, withdrew it: but instantly caught
+her hand again, and kissed it passionately.  So much concerned was she
+for his physical health that the momentary shrinking escaped her.
+
+"You're sick," she said.  "I know you are.  You're singing too much in
+the church."
+
+"No."
+
+"Then you're eating too much lemon pie," she declared, anxiously.
+"You're too fond of that.  It upsets your stomach.  Oh, Richard!
+Shame, dear!  I told you not to."
+
+"You told me not to eat _much_," he said.  "So I don't eat any--to make
+sure."
+
+She was aware of the significance of this sacrifice--and kissed him
+quickly in fond approval.  Then she turned up his coat-sleeve.  "The
+fool!" she cried.  "You got cold.  That's what's the matter with you.
+Here it is November!  And he ain't put your flannels on.  That there
+curate," she concluded, in disgust, "don't know nothing about raising a
+boy."
+
+"I'm quite well, mother."
+
+"Then what's the matter with you?"
+
+"I'm sad!" he whispered.
+
+She caught him to her breast--blindly misconceiving the meaning of
+this: in her ignorance concluding that he longed for her, and was sick
+because of that....  And while she held him close, the clock of the
+Church of the Lifted Cross chimed seven.  In haste she put him down,
+kissed him, set him on his homeward way; and she watched him until he
+was lost in the dusk and distance of the park.  Then, concerned,
+bewildered, she made haste to that quarter of the city--that swarming,
+flaring, blatant place--where lay her occupation for the night.
+
+Near Christmas, in a burst of snowy weather, the boy sang his first
+solo at the Church of the Lifted Cross: this at evening.  His mother,
+conspicuously gowned, somewhat overcome by the fashion of the place,
+which she had striven to imitate--momentarily chagrined by her
+inexplicable failure to be in harmony--seated herself obscurely, where
+she had but an infrequent glimpse of his white robe, wistful face,
+dark, curling hair.  She had never loved him more proudly--never before
+realized that his value extended beyond the region of her arms: never
+before known that the babe, the child, the growing boy, mothered by
+her, nursed at her breast, her possession, was a gift to the world,
+sweet and inspiring.  "Angels, ever bright and fair!"  She felt the
+thrill of his tender voice; perceived the impression: the buzz, the
+subsiding confusion, the spell-bound stillness.  "Take, oh, take me to
+your care!"  It was in her heart to strike her breasts--to cry out that
+this was her son, born of her; her bosom his place....
+
+When the departing throng had thinned in the aisle, she stepped from
+the pew, and stood waiting.  There passed, then, a lady in rich
+attire--sweet-faced, of exquisite manner.  A bluff, ruddy young man
+attended her.
+
+"Did you like the music?" he asked--a conventional question: everywhere
+repeated.
+
+"Perfectly lovely!" she replied.  "A wonderful voice!  And such a
+pretty child!"
+
+"I wonder," said he, "who the boy can be?"
+
+Acting upon ingenuous impulse, the boy's mother overtook the man,
+timidly touched his elbow, looked into his eyes, her own bright with
+proud love.
+
+"He is my son," she said.
+
+The lady turned in amazement.  In a brief, appraising glance, she
+comprehended the whole woman; the outre gown, the pencilled eyebrows,
+the rouged cheeks, the bleached hair.  She took the man's arm.
+
+"Come!" she said.
+
+The man yielded.  He bowed--smiled in an embarrassed way, flushing to
+his sandy hair: turned his back.
+
+"How strange!" the lady whispered.
+
+The woman was left alone in the aisle--not chagrined by the rebuff,
+being used to this attitude, sensitive no longer: but now knowing, for
+the first time, that the world into which her child had gone would not
+accept her....  The church was empty.  The organ had ceased.  One by
+one the twinkling lights were going out.  The boy came bounding down
+the aisle.  With a glad little cry he leaped into her waiting arms....
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Chorister_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Alienation_]
+
+
+
+
+_ALIENATION_
+
+This night, after a week of impatient expectation, they were by the
+curate's permission to spend together in the Box Street tenement.  It
+was the boy's first return to the little room overlooking the river.
+Thither they hurried through the driving snow, leaning to the blasts,
+unconscious of the bitterness of the night: the twain in high
+spirits--the boy chattering, merrily, incoherently, as he trotted at
+his silent mother's side.  Very happy, now, indeed, they raced up the
+stair, rioting up flight after flight, to top floor rear, where there
+was a cheery fire, a kettle bubbling on the stove, a lamp turned low--a
+feeling of warmth and repose and welcome, which the broad window,
+noisily shaken by a hearty winter wind from the sea, pleasantly
+accentuated.
+
+The gladness of this return, the sudden, overwhelming realization of a
+longing that had been agonizing in its intensity, excited the boy
+beyond bounds.  He gave an indubitable whoop of joy, which so startled
+and amazed the woman that she stared open-mouthed; tossed his cap in
+the air, flung his overcoat and gloves on the floor, peeped through the
+black window-panes, pried into the cupboard, hugged his mother so
+rapturously, so embarrassingly, that he tumbled her over and was
+himself involved in the hilarious collapse: whereupon, as a measure of
+protection while she laid the table, she despatched him across the hall
+to greet Mr. Poddle, who was ill abed, anxiously awaiting him.
+
+The Dog-faced Man was all prinked for the occasion--his hirsute
+adornment neatly brushed and braided, smoothly parted from crown over
+brow and nose to chin: so that, though, to be sure, his appearance
+instantly suggested a porcupine, his sensitive lips and mild gray eyes
+were for once allowed to impress the beholder.  The air of Hockley's
+Musee had at last laid him by the heels.  No longer, by any license of
+metaphor, could his lungs be said to be merely restless.  He was flat
+on his back--white, wan, gasping: sweat dampening the hair on his brow.
+But he bravely chirked up when the child entered, subdued and pitiful;
+and though, in response to a glance of pain and concern, his eyes
+overran with the weak tears of the sick, he smiled like a man to whom
+Nature had not been cruel, while he pressed the small hand so swiftly
+extended.
+
+"I'm sick, Richard," he whispered.  "'Death No Respecter of Persons.'
+Git me?  'High and Low Took By the Grim Reaper.'  I'm awful sick."
+
+The boy, now seated on the bed, still holding the ghastly hand, hoped
+that Mr. Poddle would soon be well.
+
+"No," said the Dog-faced Man.  "I won't.  'Climax of a Notable Career.'
+Git me?  It wouldn't--be proper."
+
+Not proper?
+
+"No, Richard.  It really wouldn't be proper.  'Dignified in Death.'
+Understand?  Distinguished men has their limits.  'Outlived His Fame.'
+I really couldn't stand it.  Git me?"
+
+"Not--quite."
+
+"Guess I'll have to tell you.  Look!"  The Dog-faced Man held up his
+hand--but swiftly replaced it between the child's warm, sympathetic
+palms.  "No rings.  Understand?  'Pawned the Family Jewells.'  Git me?
+'Reduced to Poverty.'  Where's my frock coat?  Where's my silk hat?
+'Wardrobe of a Celebrity Sold For A Song.'  Where's them two pair of
+trousers?  'A Tragic Disappearance.'  All up the spout.  Everything
+gone.  'Not a Stitch to His Name.'  Really, Richard, it wouldn't be
+proper to get well.  A natural phenomenon of my standing
+couldn't--simply _couldn't_, Richard--go back to the profession with a
+wardrobe consistin' of two pink night-shirts, both the worse for wear.
+It wouldn't _do_!  On the Stage In Scant Attire.'  I couldn't stand it.
+'Fell From His High Estate.'  It would break my heart."
+
+No word of comfort occurred to the boy.
+
+"So," sighed the Dog-faced Man,  "I guess I better die.  And the
+quicker the better."
+
+To change the distressful drift of the conversation, the boy inquired
+concerning the Mexican Sword Swallower.
+
+"Hush!" implored Mr. Poddle, in a way so poignant that the boy wished
+he had been more discreet.  "Them massive proportions!  Them socks!
+'Her Fate a Tattooed Man,'" he pursued, in gentle melancholy.  "Don't
+ask me!  'Nearing the Fateful Hour.'  Poor child!'  Wedded To A
+Artificial Freak.'"
+
+"Is she married?"
+
+"No--not yet," Mr. Poddle explained.  "But when the dragon's tail is
+finished, accordin' to undenigeable report, the deed will be did.
+'Shackled For Life.'  Oh, my God!  He's borrowed the money to pay the
+last installment; and I'm informed that only the scales has to be
+picked out with red.  But why should I mourn?" he asked.  "'Adored From
+Afar.'  Understand?  That's what I got to do.  'His Love a Tragedy.'
+Oh, Richard," Mr. Poddle concluded, in genuine distress, "that's me!
+It couldn't be nothing else.  Natural phenomens is natural phenomens.
+'Paid the Penalty of Genius.'  That's me!"
+
+The boy's mother called to him.
+
+"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, abruptly, "I'm awful sick.  I can't last
+much longer.  Git me?  I'm dyin'.  And I'm poor.  I ain't got a cent.
+I'm forgot by the public.  I'm all alone in the world.  Nobody owes me
+no kindness."  He clutched the boy's hand.  "Know who pays my rent?
+Know who feeds me?  Know who brings the doctor when I vomit blood?
+Know who sits with me in the night--when I can't sleep?  Know who
+watches over me?  Who comforts me?  Who holds my hand when I git afraid
+to die?  Know who that is, Richard?"
+
+"Yes," the boy whispered.
+
+"Who is it?"
+
+"My mother!"
+
+"Yes--your mother," said the Dog-faced Man.  He lifted himself on the
+pillow.  "Richard," he  continued, "listen to me!  I'll be dead, soon,
+and then I can't talk to you no more.  I can't say no word to you from
+the grave--when the time she dreads has come.  Listen to me!"  His
+voice rose.  He was breathing in gasps.  There was a light in his eyes.
+"It is your mother.  There ain't a better woman in all the world.
+Listen to me! Don't you forget her.  She loves you.  You're all she's
+got.  Her poor heart is hungry for you.  Don't you forget her.  There
+ain't a better woman nowhere.  There ain't a woman more fit for heaven.
+Don't you go back on her!  Don't you let no black-and-white curick
+teach you no different!"
+
+"I'll not forget!" said the boy.
+
+Mr. Poddle laid a hand on his head.  "God bless you, Richard!" said he.
+
+The boy kissed him, unafraid of his monstrous countenance--and then
+fled to his mother....
+
+
+For a long time the Dog-faced Man lay alone, listening to the voices
+across the hall: himself smiling to know that the woman had her son
+again; not selfishly reluctant to be thus abandoned.  The door was
+ajar.  Joyous sounds drifted in--chatter, soft laughter, the rattle of
+dishes....  Presently, silence: broken by the creaking of the
+rocking-chair, and by low singing....  By and by, voices, speaking
+gravely--in intimate converse: this for a long, long time, while the
+muttering of the tenement ceased, and quiet fell....  A plea and an
+imploring protest.  She was wanting him to go to bed.  There followed
+the familiar indications that the child was being disrobed: shoes
+striking the floor, yawns, sleepy talk, crooning encouragement....
+Then a strange silence--puzzling to the listener: not accountable by
+his recollection of similar occasions.
+
+There was a quick step in the hall.
+
+"Poddle!"
+
+The Dog-faced Man started.  There was alarm in the voice--despair,
+resentment.  On the threshold stood the woman--distraught: one hand
+against the door-post, the other on her heart.
+
+"Poddle, he's----"
+
+Mr. Poddle, thrown into a paroxysm of fright by the pause, struggled to
+his elbow, but fell back, gasping.
+
+"What's he doin'?" he managed to whisper.
+
+"Prayin'!" she answered, hoarsely.
+
+Mr. Poddle was utterly nonplussed.  The situation was unprecedented:
+not to be dealt with on the basis of past experience.
+
+"'Religion In Haste,'" he sighed, sadly confounded.  "'Repent At
+Leisure.'"
+
+"Prayin'!" she repeated, entering on tiptoe.  "He's down on his
+knees--_prayin'_!"  She began to pace the floor--wringing her hands: a
+tragic figure.  "It's come, Poddle!" she whimpered, beginning now to
+bite at her fingernails.  "He's changed.  He never seen me pray.  _I_
+never told him how.  Oh, he's--different.  And he'll change more.  I
+got to face it.  He'll soon be like the people that--that--don't
+understand us.  I couldn't stand it to see that stare in his eyes.
+It'll kill me, Poddle!  I knew it would come," she continued,
+uninterrupted, Mr. Poddle being unable to come to her assistance for
+lack of breath.  "But I didn't think it would be so--awful soon.  And I
+didn't know how much it would hurt.  I didn't _think_ about it.  I
+didn't dare.  Oh, my baby!" she sobbed.  "You'll not love your mother
+any more--when you find her out.  You'll be just like--all them
+people!"  She came to a full stop.  "Poddle," she declared, trembling,
+her voice rising harshly, "I got to do something.  I got to do
+it--_quick_!  What shall I do?  Oh, what shall I do?"
+
+Mr. Poddle drew a long breath.  "Likewise!" he gasped.
+
+She did not understand.
+
+"Likewise!" Mr. Poddle repeated.  "'Fought the Devil With Fire.'
+Quick!"  He weakly beckoned her to be off.  "Don't--let him
+know--you're different.  Go and--pray yourself.  Don't--let on
+you--never done it--before."
+
+She gave him a glad glance of comprehension--and disappeared...
+
+
+The boy had risen.
+
+"Oh!" she exclaimed, brightly.  "You got through, didn't you, dear?"
+
+He was now sitting on the edge of the bed, his legs dangling--still
+reluctant to crawl within.  And he was very gravely regarding her, a
+cloud of anxious wonder in his eyes.
+
+"Who taught you to," she hesitated, "do it--that way?" she pursued,
+making believe to be but lightly interested.  "The curate?  Oh, my!"
+she exclaimed, immediately changing the thought.  "Your mother's awful
+sleepy."  She counterfeited a yawn.  "I never kneel to--do it," she
+continued.  In a sharp glance she saw the wonder clearing from his
+eyes, the beginnings of a smile appear about his lips; and she was
+emboldened to proceed.  "Some kneels," she said, "and some doesn't.
+The curate, I suppose, kneels.  That's his way.  Now, _I_ don't.  I was
+brought up--the other way.  I wait till I get in bed to--say mine.
+When you was a baby," she rattled, "I used to--keep it up--for hours at
+a time.  I just _love_ to--do it.  In bed, you know.  I guess you never
+seen me kneel, did you?  But I think I will, after this, because
+you--do it--that way."
+
+His serenity was quite restored.  Glad to learn that his mother knew
+the solace of prayer, he rolled back on the pillows.  She tucked him in.
+
+"Now, watch me," she said.
+
+"And I," said he, "will pray all over again.  In bed," he added;
+"because that's the way _you_ do it."
+
+She knelt.  "In God's name!" she thought, as she inclined her bead,
+"what can I do?  I've lost him.  Oh, I've lost him....  What'll I do
+when he finds out?  He'll not love me then.  Love me!" she thought,
+bitterly.  "He'll look at me like them people in the church.  I can't
+stand it!  I got to _do_ something....  It won't be long.  They'll tell
+him--some one.  And I can't do nothing to help it!  But I _got_ to do
+something....  My God!  I got to do something.  I'll dress better than
+this.  This foulard's a botch."  New fashions in dress, in coiffures,
+multiplied in her mind.  She was groping, according to her poor
+enlightenment.  "The pompadour!" she mused, inspired, according to the
+inspiration of her kind.  "It might suit my style.  I'll try it....
+But, oh, it won't do no good," she thought, despairing.  "_It_ won't do
+no good....  I've lost him!  Good God!  I've lost my own child...."
+
+She rose.
+
+"It took you an awful long time," said the boy.
+
+"Yes," she answered, absently.  "I'm the real thing.  When I pray, I
+pray good and hard."
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Alienation_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _A Child's Prayer_]
+
+
+
+
+_A CHILD'S PRAYER_
+
+The boy's room was furnished in the manner of the curate's
+chamber--which, indeed, was severe and chaste enough: for the curate
+practiced certain monkish austerities not common to the clergy of this
+day.  It was a white, bare little room, at the top of the house,
+overlooking the street: a still place, into which, at bedtime, no
+distraction entered to break the nervous introspection, the high,
+wistful dreaming, sadly habitual to the child when left alone in the
+dark.  But always, of fine mornings, the sun came joyously to waken
+him; and often, in the night, when he lay wakeful, the moon peeped in
+upon the exquisite simplicity, and, discovering a lonely child,
+companionably lingered to hearten him.  The beam fell over the
+window-sill, crawled across the floor, climbed the bare wall.
+
+There was a great white crucifix on the wall, hanging in the broad path
+of the moonlight.  It stared at the boy's pillow, tenderly appealing:
+the head thorn-crowned, the body drawn tense, the face uplifted in
+patient agony.  Sometimes it made the boy cry.
+
+"They who sin," he would repeat, "crucify the dear Lord again!"
+
+It would be very hard, then, to fall asleep....
+
+So did the crucifix on the wall work within the child's heart--so did
+the shadows of the wide, still house impress him, so did the curate's
+voice and gentle teaching, so did the gloom, the stained windows, the
+lofty arches, the lights and low, sweet music of the Church of the
+Lifted Cross favour the subtle change--that he was now moved to pain
+and sickening disgust by rags and pinched faces and discord and dirt
+and feverish haste and all manner of harshness and unloveliness,
+conceiving them poignant as sin....
+
+
+Mother and son were in the park.  It was evening--dusk: a grateful balm
+abroad in the air.  Men and women, returning from church, idled through
+the spring night.
+
+"But, dear," said his mother, while she patted his hand, "you mustn't
+_hate_ the wicked!"
+
+He looked up in wonder.
+
+"Oh, my! no," she pursued.  "Poor things!  They're not so bad--when you
+know them.  Some is real kind."
+
+"I could not _love_ them!"
+
+"Why not?"
+
+"I _could_ not!"
+
+So positive, this--the suggestion so scouted--that she took thought for
+her own fate.
+
+"Would you love me?" she asked.
+
+"Oh, mother!" he laughed.
+
+"What would you do," she gravely continued, "if I was--a wicked woman?"
+
+He laughed again.
+
+"What would you do," she insisted, "if somebody told you I was bad?"
+
+"Mother," he answered, not yet affected by her earnestness, "you could
+not be!"
+
+She put her hands on his shoulders.  "What would you do?" she repeated.
+
+"Don't!" he pleaded, disquieted.
+
+Again the question--low, intense, demanding answer.  He trembled.  She
+was not in play.  A sinful woman?  For a moment he conceived the
+possibility--vaguely: in a mere flash of feeling.
+
+"What would you do?"
+
+"I don't know!"
+
+She sighed.
+
+"I think," he whispered, "that I'd--die!"
+
+
+That night, when the moonlight had climbed to the crucifix on the wall,
+the boy got out of bed.  For a long time he stood in the beam of soft
+light--staring at the tortured Figure.
+
+"I think I'd better do it!" he determined.
+
+He knelt--lifted his clasped hands--began his childish appeal.
+
+"Dear Jesus," he prayed, "my mother says that I must not hate the
+wicked.  You heard her, didn't you, dear Jesus?  It was in the park,
+to-night, after church--at the bench near the lilac bush.  You _must_
+have heard her....  Mother says the wicked are kind, and not so bad.  I
+would like very much to love them.  She says they're nice--when you
+know them.  I know she's right, of course.  But it seems queer.  And
+she says I _ought_ to love them.  So I want to do it, if you don't
+mind....  Maybe, if you would let me be a little wicked for a little
+while, I could do it.  Don't you think, Jesus, dear, that it is a good
+idea?  A little wicked--for just a little while.  I wouldn't care very
+much, if you didn't mind.  But if it hurts you very much, I don't want
+to, if you please....  But I would like to be a little wicked.  If I
+do, please don't forget me.  I would not like to be wicked long.  Just
+a little while.  Then I would be good again--and love the wicked, as my
+mother wants me to do.  Good-bye.  I mean--Amen!"
+
+The child knew nothing about sin.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _A Child's Prayer_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Mr. Poddle's Finale_]
+
+
+
+
+_MR. PODDLE'S FINALE_
+
+Of a yellow, balmy morning, with a languid breeze stirring the curtains
+in the open windows of the street, a hansom cab, drawn by a lean gray
+beast, appeared near the curate's door.  What with his wild career, the
+nature of his errand, the extraordinary character of his fare, the
+driver was all elbows and eyes--a perspiring, gesticulating figure,
+swaying widely on the high perch.
+
+Within was a lady so monstrously stout that she completely filled the
+vehicle.  Rolls of fat were tucked into every nook, jammed into every
+corner, calked into every crevice; and, at last, demanding place, they
+scandalously overflowed the apron.  So tight was the fit--so crushed
+and confined the lady's immensity--that, being quite unable to
+articulate or stir, but desiring most heartily to do both, she could do
+little but wheeze, and faintly wave a gigantic hand.
+
+Proceeding thus--while the passenger gasped, and the driver
+gesticulated, and the hansom creaked and tottered, and the outraged
+horse bent to the fearful labour--the equipage presently arrived at the
+curate's door, and was there drawn up with a jerk.
+
+The Fat Lady was released, assisted to alight, helped across the
+pavement; and having waddled up three steps of the flight, and being
+unable without a respite to lift her massive foot for the fourth time,
+she loudly demanded of the impassive door the instant appearance of
+Dickie Slade: whereupon, the door flew open, and the boy bounded out.
+
+"Madame Lacara!" he cried.
+
+"Quick, child!" the Fat Lady wheezed.  "Git your hat.  Your mother
+can't stay no longer--and I can't get up the stairs--and Poddle's
+dyin'--and _git your hat_!"
+
+In a moment the boy returned.  The Fat Lady was standing beside the
+cab--the exhausted horse contemplating her with no friendly eye.
+
+"Git in!" said she.
+
+"Don't you do it," the driver warned.
+
+"Git in!" the Fat Lady repeated.
+
+"Not if he knows what's good for him," said the driver.  "Not first."
+
+The boy hesitated.
+
+"Git in, child!" screamed the Fat Lady.
+
+"Don't you do it," said the driver.
+
+"Child," the Fat Lady gasped, exasperated, "git in!"
+
+"Not first," the driver repeated.  "There ain't room for both; and once
+she lets her weight down----"
+
+"Maybe," the Fat Lady admitted, after giving the matter most careful
+consideration, "it would be better for you to set on me."
+
+"Maybe," the boy agreed, much relieved, "it would."
+
+So Madame Lacara entered, and took the boy in her arms; and off, at
+last, they went towards the Box Street tenement, swaying, creaking,
+wheezing, with a troop of joyous urchins in the wake....
+
+It was early afternoon--with the sunlight lying thick and warm on the
+window-ledge of Mr. Poddle's room, about to enter, to distribute cheer,
+to speak its unfailing promises.  The sash was lifted high; a gentle
+wind, clean and blue, blowing from the sea, over the roofs and the
+river, came sportively in, with a joyous little rush and swirl--but of
+a sudden failed: hushed, as though by unexpected encounter with the
+solemnity within.
+
+The boy's mother was gone.  It was of a Saturday; she had not dared to
+linger.  When the boy entered, Mr. Poddle lay alone, lifted on the
+pillows, staring deep into the wide, shining sky: composed and
+dreamful.  The distress of his deformity, as the pains of dissolution,
+had been mitigated by the woman's kind and knowing hand: the tawny
+hair, by nature rank and shaggy, by habit unkempt, now damp with sweat,
+was everywhere laid smooth upon his face--brushed away from the eyes:
+no longer permitted to obscure the fast failing sight.
+
+Beside him, close--drawing closer--the boy seated himself.  Very low
+and broken--husky, halting--was the Dog-faced Man's voice.  The boy
+must often bend his ear to understand.
+
+"The hirsute," Mr. Poddle whispered, "adornment.  All ready for the
+last appearance.  'Natural Phenomonen Meets the Common Fate.'
+Celebrities," he added, with a little smile, "is just clay."
+
+The boy took his hand.
+
+"She done it," Mr. Poddle explained, faintly indicating the unusual
+condition of his deforming hair, "with a little brush."
+
+"She?" the boy asked, with significant emphasis.
+
+"No," Mr. Poddle sighed.  "Hush!  Not She--just her."
+
+By this the boy knew that the Mexican Sword Swallower had not
+relented--but that his mother had been kind.
+
+"She left that there little brush somewheres," Mr. Poddle continued,
+with an effort to lift his head, but failing to do more than roll his
+glazed eyes.  "There was a little handkerchief with it.  Can't you find
+'em, Richard?  I wish you could.  They make me--more comfortable.  Oh,
+I'm glad you got 'em!  I feel easier--this way.  She said you'd stay
+with me--to the last.  She said, Richard, that maybe you'd keep the
+hair away from my eyes, and the sweat from rollin' in.  For I'm easier
+that way; and I want to _see_," he moaned, "to the last!"
+
+The boy pressed his hand.
+
+"I'm tired of the hair," Mr. Poddle sighed.  "I used to be proud of it;
+but I'm tired of it--now.  It's been admired, Richard; it's been
+applauded.  Locks of it has been requested by the Fair; and the Strong
+has wished they was me.  But, Richard, celebrities sits on a lonely
+eminence.  And I _been_ lonely, God knows! though I kept a smilin'
+face....  I'm tired of the hair--tired of fame.  It all looks
+different--when you git sight of the Common Leveller.  'Tired of His
+Talent.'  Since I been lyin' here, Richard, sick and alone, I been
+thinkin' that talent wasn't nothin' much after all.  I been wishin',
+Richard--wishin'!"
+
+The Dog-faced Man paused for breath.
+
+"I been wishin'," he gasped, "that I wasn't a phenomonen--but only a
+man!"
+
+
+The sunlight began to creep towards Mr. Poddle's bed--a broad, yellow
+beam, stretching into the blue spaces without: lying like a golden
+pathway before him.
+
+"Richard," said Mr. Poddle, "I'm goin' to die."
+
+The boy began to cry.
+
+"Don't cry!" Mr. Poddle pleaded.  "I ain't afraid.  Hear me, Richard?
+I ain't afraid."
+
+"No, no!"
+
+"I'm glad to die.  'Death the Dog-faced Man's Best Friend.'  I'm glad!
+Lyin' here, I seen the truth.  It's only when a man looks back that he
+finds out what he's missed--only when he looks back, from the end of
+the path, that he sees the flowers he might have plucked by the way....
+Lyin' here, I been lookin' back--far back.  And my eyes is opened.  Now
+I see--now I know!  I have been travellin' a road where the flowers
+grows thick.  But God made me so I couldn't pick 'em.  It's love,
+Richard, that men wants.  Just love!  It's love their hearts is thirsty
+for....  And there wasn't no love--for me.  I been awful thirsty,
+Richard; but there wasn't no water anywhere in all the world--for me.
+'Spoiled In the Making.'  That's me.  'God's Bad Break.'  Oh, that's
+me!  I'm not a natural phenomonen no more.  I'm only a freak of nature.
+I ain't got no kick comin'.  I stand by what God done.  Maybe it wasn't
+no mistake; maybe He wanted to show all the people in the world what
+would happen if He was in the habit of gittin' careless.  Anyhow, I
+guess He's man enough to stand by the job He done.  He made me what I
+am--a freak.  I ain't to blame.  But, oh, my God!  Richard, it
+hurts--to be that!"
+
+The boy brushed the tears from the Dog-faced Man's eyes.
+
+"No," Mr. Poddle repeated.  "I ain't afraid to die.  For I been
+thinkin'--since I been lyin' here, sick and alone--I been thinkin' that
+us mistakes has a good deal----"
+
+The boy bent close.
+
+"Comin' to us!"
+
+The sunlight was climbing the bed-post.
+
+"I been lookin' back," Mr. Poddle repeated.  "Things don't look the
+same.  You gits a bird's-eye view of life--from your deathbed.  And it
+looks--somehow--different."
+
+There was a little space of silence--while the Dog-faced Man drew long
+breaths: while his wasted hand wandered restlessly over the coverlet.
+
+"You got the little brush, Richard?" he asked, his voice changing to a
+tired sigh.  "The adornment has got in the way again."
+
+The boy brushed back the fallen hair--wiped away the sweat.
+
+"Your mother," said Mr. Poddle, faintly smiling, "does it better.
+She's used--to doing it.  You ain't--done it--quite right--have you?
+You ain't got--all them hairs--out of the way?"
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Not all," Mr. Poddle gently persisted; "because I can't--see--very
+well."
+
+While the boy humoured the fancy, Mr. Poddle lay musing--his hand still
+straying over the coverlet: still feverishly searching.
+
+"I used to think, Richard," he whispered, "that it ought to be done--in
+public."  He paused--a flash of alarm in his eyes.  "Do you hear me,
+Richard?" he asked.
+
+"Yes."
+
+"Sure?"
+
+"Oh, yes!"
+
+Mr. Poddle frowned--puzzled, it may be, by the distant sound, the
+muffled, failing rumble, of his own voice.
+
+"I used to think," he repeated, dismissing the problem, as beyond him,
+"that I'd like to do it--in public."
+
+The boy waited.
+
+"Die," Mr. Poddle explained.
+
+A man went whistling gaily past the door.  The merry air, the buoyant
+step, were strangely not discordant; nor was the sunshine, falling over
+the foot of the bed.
+
+"'Last Appearance of a Famous Freak!'" Mr. Poddle elucidated, his eyes
+shining with delight--returning, all at once, to his old manner.  "Git
+me, Richard?" he continued, excitedly.  "'Fitting Finale!  Close of a
+Curious Career!  Mr. Henry Poddle, the eminent natural phenomonen, has
+consented to depart this life on the stage of Hockley's Musee, on
+Sunday next, in the presence of three physicians, a trained nurse, a
+minister of the gospel and a undertaker.  Unparalleled Entertainment!
+The management has been at unprecedented expense to git this unique
+feature.  Death Defied!  A Extraordinary Educational Exhibition!  Note:
+Mr. Poddle will do his best to oblige his admirers and the patrons of
+the house by dissolving the mortal tie about the hour of ten o'clock;
+but the management cannot guarantee that the exhibition will conclude
+before midnight.'"  Mr. Poddle made a wry face--with yet a glint of
+humour about it.  "'Positively,'" said he, "'the last appearance of
+this eminent freak.  No return engagement.'"
+
+Again the buoyant step in the hall, the gaily whistled air--departing:
+leaving an expectant silence.
+
+"Do it," Mr. Poddle gasped, worn out, "in public.  But since I been
+lyin' here," he added, "lookin' back, I seen the error.  The public,
+Richard, has no feelin'.  They'd laugh--if I groaned.  I don't like the
+public--no more.  I don't want to die--in public.  I want," he
+concluded, his voice falling to a thin, exhausted whisper, "only your
+mother--and you, Richard--and----"
+
+"Did you say--Her?"
+
+"The Lovely One!"
+
+"I'll bring her!" said the boy, impulsively.
+
+"No, no!  She wouldn't come.  I been--in  communication--recent.  And
+she writ back.  Oh, Richard, she writ back!  My heart's broke!"
+
+The boy brushed the handkerchief over the Dog-faced Man's eyes.
+
+"'Are you muzzled,' says she, 'in dog days?'"
+
+"Don't mind her!" cried the boy.
+
+"In the eyes of the law, Richard," Mr. Poddle exclaimed, his eyes
+flashing, "I ain't no dog!"
+
+The boy kissed his forehead--there was no other comfort to offer: and
+the caress was sufficient.
+
+"I wish," Mr. Poddle sighed, "that I knew how God will look at
+it--to-night!"
+
+
+Mr. Poddle, exhausted by speech and emotion, closed his eyes.  By and
+by the boy stealthily withdrew his hand from the weakening clasp.  Mr.
+Poddle gave no sign of knowing it.  The boy slipped away....  And
+descending to the third floor of the tenement, he came to the room
+where lived the Mexican Sword Swallower: whom he persuaded to return
+with him to Mr. Poddle's bedside.
+
+They paused at the door.  The woman drew back.
+
+"Aw, Dick," she simpered, "I hate to!"
+
+"Just this once!" the boy pleaded.
+
+"Just to say it!"
+
+The reply was a bashful giggle.
+
+"You don't have to _mean_ it," the boy argued.  "Just _say_ it--that's
+all!"
+
+They entered.  Mr. Poddle was muttering the boy's name--in a vain
+effort to lift his voice.  His hands were both at the
+coverlet--picking, searching: both restless in the advancing sunshine.
+With a sob of self-reproach the boy ran quickly to the bedside, took
+one of the wandering hands, pressed it to his lips.  And Mr. Poddle
+sighed, and lay quiet again.
+
+"Mr. Poddle," the boy whispered, "she's come at last."
+
+There was no response.
+
+"She's come!" the boy repeated.  He gave the hand he held to the woman.
+Then he put his lips close to the dying man's ear.  "Don't you hear me?
+She's come!"
+
+Mr. Poddle opened his eyes.  "Her--massive--proportions!" he faltered.
+
+"Quick!" said the boy.
+
+"Poddle," the woman lied, "I love you!"
+
+Then came the Dog-faced Man's one brief flash of ecstasy--expressed in
+a wondrous glance of joy and devotion: but a swiftly fading fire.
+
+"She loves me!" he muttered.
+
+"I do, Poddle!" the woman sobbed, willing, now, for the grotesque
+deception.  "Yes, I do!"
+
+"'Beauty,'" Mr. Poddle gasped, "'and the Beast!'"
+
+They listened intently.  He said no more....  Soon the sunbeam
+glorified the smiling face....
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Mr. Poddle's Finale_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _His Mother_]
+
+
+
+
+_HIS MOTHER_
+
+While he waited for his mother to come--seeking relief from the
+melancholy and deep mystification of this death--the boy went into the
+street.  The day was well disposed, the crowded world in an amiable
+mood; he perceived no menace--felt no warning of catastrophe.  He
+wandered far, unobservant, forgetful: the real world out of mind.  And
+it chanced that he lost his way; and he came, at last, to that loud,
+seething place, thronged with unquiet faces, where, even in the
+sunshine, sin and poverty walked abroad, unashamed....  Rush, crash,
+joyless laughter, swollen flesh, red eyes, shouting, rags, disease:
+flung into the midst of it--transported from the sweet feeling and
+quiet gloom of the Church of the Lifted Gross--he was confused and
+frightened....
+
+
+A hand fell heartily on the boy's shoulder.  "Hello, there!" cried a
+big voice.  "Ain't you Millie Blade's kid?"
+
+"Yes, sir," the boy gasped.
+
+It was a big man--a broad-shouldered, lusty fellow, muscular and lithe:
+good-humoured and dull of face, winning of voice and manner.
+Countenance and voice were vaguely familiar to the boy.  He felt no
+alarm.
+
+"What the devil you doing here?" the man demanded.  "Looking for
+Millie?"
+
+"Oh, no!" the boy answered, horrified.  "My mother isn't--_here_!"
+
+"Well, what you doing?"
+
+"I'm lost."
+
+The man laughed.  He clapped the boy on the back.  "Don't you be
+afraid," said he, sincerely hearty.  "I'll take you home.  You know me,
+don't you?"
+
+"Not your name."
+
+"Anyhow, you remember me, don't you?  You've seen me before?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"Well, my name's Jim Millette.  I'm an acrobat.  And I know you.  Why,
+sure!  I remember when you was born.  Me and your mother is old
+friends.  Soon as I seen you I knew who you was.  'By gad!' says I, 'if
+that ain't Millie Slade's kid!'  How is she, anyhow?"
+
+"She's very well."
+
+"Working?"
+
+"No," the boy answered, gravely; "my mother does not work."
+
+The man whistled.
+
+"I am living with Mr. Fithian, the curate," said the boy, with a sigh.
+"So my mother is having--a very good--time."
+
+"She must be lonely."
+
+The boy shook his head.  "Oh, no!" said he.  "She is much
+happier--without me."
+
+"She's _what_?"
+
+"Happier," the boy repeated, "without me.  If she were not," he added,
+"I would not live with the curate."
+
+The man laughed.  It was in pity--not in merriment.  "Well, say," he
+said, "when you see your mother, you tell her you met Jim Millette on
+the street.  Will you?  You tell her Jim's been--married.  She'll
+understand.  And I guess she'll be glad to know it.  And, say, I guess
+she'll wonder who it's to.  You tell her it's the little blonde of the
+Flying Tounsons.  She'll know I ain't losing anything, anyhow, by
+standing in with that troupe.  Tell her it's all right.  You just tell
+her I said that everything was all right.  Will you?"
+
+"Yes, sir."
+
+"You ain't never been to a show, have you?" the man continued.  "I
+thought not.  Well, say, you come along with me.  It ain't late.  We'll
+see the after-piece at the Burlesque.  I'll take you in."
+
+"I think," said the boy, "I had better not."
+
+"Aw, come on!" the acrobat urged.
+
+"I'm awful glad to see you, Dick," he added, putting his arm around the
+boy, of kind impulse; "and I'd like to give you a good time--for
+Millie's sake."
+
+The boy was still doubtful.  "I had better go home," he said.
+
+"Oh, now, don't you be afraid of me, Dick.  I'll take you home after
+the show.  We got lots of time.  Aw, come on!"
+
+It occurred to the boy that Providence had ordered events in answer to
+his prayer.
+
+"Thank you," he said.
+
+"You'll have a good time," the acrobat promised.  "They say Flannigan's
+got a good show."
+
+They made their way to the Burlesque.  Flannigan's Forty Flirts there
+held the boards.  "Girls!  Just Girls!  Grass Widows and Merry Maids!
+No Nonsense About 'Em!  Just Girls!  Girls!"  The foul and tawdry
+aspect of the entrance oppressed the child.  He felt some tragic
+foreboding....
+
+
+Within it was dark to the boy's eyes.  The air was hot and
+foul--stagnant, exhausted: the stale exhalation of a multitude of lungs
+which vice was rotting; tasting of their very putridity.  A mist of
+tobacco smoke filled the place--was still rising in bitter, stifling
+clouds.  There was a nauseating smell of beer and sweat and
+disinfectants.  The boy's foot felt the unspeakable slime of the floor:
+he tingled with disgust.
+
+An illustrated song was in listless progress.  The light, reflected
+from the screen, revealed a throng of repulsive faces, stretching, row
+upon row, into the darkness of the rear, into the shadows of the
+roof--sickly and pimpled and bloated flesh: vicious faces, hopeless,
+vacuous, diseased.  And these were the faces that leered and writhed in
+the boy's dreams of hell.  Here, present and tangible, were gathered
+all his terrors.  He was in the very midst of sin.
+
+The song was ended.  The footlights flashed high.  There was a burst of
+blatant music--a blare: unfeeling and discordant.  It grated
+agonizingly.  The boy's sensitive ear rebelled.  He shuddered....
+Screen and curtain disappeared.  In the brilliant light beyond, a group
+of brazen women began to cavort and sing.  Their voices were harsh and
+out of tune.  At once the faces in the shadow started into eager
+interest--the eyes flashing, with some strangely evil passion, unknown
+to the child, but acutely felt....  There was a shrill shout of
+welcome--raised by the women, without feeling.  Down the stage, her
+person exposed, bare-armed, throwing shameless glances, courting the
+sensual stare, grinning as though in joyous sympathy with the evil of
+the place, came a woman with blinding blonde hair.
+
+It was the boy's mother.
+
+
+"Millie!" the acrobat ejaculated.
+
+The boy had not moved.  He was staring at the woman on the stage.  A
+flush of shame, swiftly departing, had left his face white.  Presently
+he trembled.  His lips twitched--his head drooped.  The man laid a
+comforting hand on his knee.  A tear splashed upon it.
+
+"I didn't know she was here, Dick!" the acrobat whispered.  "It's a
+shame.  But I didn't know.  And I--I'm--sorry!"
+
+The boy looked up.  He called a smile to his face.  It was a brave
+pretense.  But his face was still wan.
+
+"I think I'd like to go home," he answered, weakly.  "It's--time--for
+tea."
+
+"Don't feel bad, Dick! It's all right.  _She's_ all right."
+
+"If you please," said the boy, still resolutely pretending ignorance,
+"I think I'd like to go--now."
+
+The acrobat waited for a blast of harsh music to subside.  The boy's
+mother began to sing--a voice trivially engaged: raised beyond its
+strength.  A spasm of distress contorted the boy's face.
+
+"Brace up, Dick!" the man whispered.  "Don't take it so hard."
+
+"If you please," the boy protested, "I'll be late for tea if I don't go
+now."
+
+The acrobat took his hand--guided him, stumbling, up the aisle: led him
+into the fresh air, the cool, clean sunlight, of the street....  There
+had been sudden confusion on the stage.  The curtain had fallen with a
+rush.  But it was now lifted, again, and the dismal entertainment was
+once more in noisy course.
+
+
+It was now late in the afternoon.  The pavement was thronged.  Dazed by
+agony, blinded by the bright light of day, the boy was roughly jostled.
+The acrobat drew him into an eddy of the stream.  There the child
+offered his hand--and looked up with a dogged little smile.
+
+"Good-bye," he said.  "Thank you."
+
+The acrobat caught the hand in a warm clasp.  "You don't know your way
+home, do you?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Where you going?"
+
+The boy looked away.  There was a long interval.  Into the shuffle and
+chatter of the passing crowd crept the muffled blare of the orchestra.
+The acrobat still held the boy's hand tight--still anxiously watched
+him, his face overcast.
+
+"Box Street?" he asked.
+
+"No, sir."
+
+"Aw, Dick! think again," the acrobat pleaded.  "Come, now!  Ain't you
+going to Box Street?"
+
+"No, sir," the boy answered, low.  "I'm going to the curate's house,
+near the Church of the Lifted Cross."
+
+They were soon within sight of the trees in the park.  The boy's way
+was then known to him.  Again he extended his hand--again smiled.
+
+"Thank you," he said.  "Good-bye."
+
+The acrobat was loath to let the little hand go.  But there was nothing
+else to do.  He dropped it, at last, with a quick-drawn sigh.
+
+"It'll come out all right," he muttered.
+
+Then the boy went his way alone.  His shoulders were proudly
+squared--his head held high....
+
+
+Meantime, they had revived Millie Slade.  She was in the common
+dressing-room--a littered, infamous, foul, place, situated below stage.
+Behind her the gas flared and screamed.  Still in her panderous
+disguise, within hearing of the rasping music and the tramp of the
+dance, within hearing of the coarse applause, this tender mother sat
+alone, unconscious of evil--uncontaminated, herself kept holy by her
+motherhood, lifted by her love from the touch of sin.  To her all the
+world was a temple, undefiled, wherein she worshipped, wherein the
+child was a Presence, purifying every place.
+
+She had no strength left for tragic behaviour.  She sat limp, shedding
+weak tears, whimpering, tearing at her finger nails.
+
+"I'm found out!" she moaned.  "Oh, my God!  He'll never love me no
+more!"
+
+A woman entered in haste.
+
+"You got it, Aggie?" the mother asked.
+
+"Yes, dear.  Now, you just drink this, and you'll feel better."
+
+"I don't want it--now."
+
+"Aw, now, you drink it!  Poor dear! It'll do you lots of good."
+
+"He wouldn't want me to."
+
+"Aw, he won't know.  And you need it, dear.  _Do_ drink it!"
+
+"No, Aggie," said the mother.  "It don't matter that he don't know.  I
+just don't want it.  I _can't_ do what he wouldn't like me to."
+
+The glass was put aside.  And Aggie sat beside the mother, and drew her
+head to a sympathetic breast.
+
+"Don't cry!" she whispered.  "Oh, Millie, don't cry!"
+
+"Oh," the woman whimpered, "he'll think me an ugly thing, Aggie.  He'll
+think me a skinny thing.  If I'd only got here in time, if I'd only
+looked right, he might have loved me still.  But he won't love me no
+more--after to-day!"
+
+"Hush, Millie!  He's only a kid.  He don't know nothing about--such
+things."
+
+"Only a kid," said the mother, according to the perverted experience of
+her life, "but still a man!"
+
+"He wouldn't care."
+
+"They _all_ care!"
+
+Indeed, this was her view; and by her knowledge of the world she spoke.
+
+"Not him," said Aggie.
+
+The mother was infinitely distressed.  "Oh," she moaned, "if I'd only
+had time to pad!"
+
+This was the greater tragedy of her situation: that she misunderstood.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Mother_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _Nearing the Sea_]
+
+
+
+
+_NEARING THE SEA_
+
+It was Sunday evening.  Evil-weather threatened.  The broad window of
+top floor rear looked out upon a lowering sky--everywhere gray and
+thick: turning black beyond the distant hills.  An hour ago the
+Department wagon had rattled away with the body of Mr. Poddle; and with
+the cheerfully blasphemous directions, the tramp of feet, the jocular
+comment, as the box was carried down the narrow stair, the last
+distraction had departed.  The boy's mother was left undisturbed to
+prepare for the crucial moments in the park.
+
+She was now nervously engaged before her looking-glass.  All the tools
+of her trade lay at hand.  A momentous problem confronted her.  The
+child must be won back.  He must be convinced of her worth.  Therefore
+she must be beautiful.  He thought her pretty.  She would be pretty.
+But how impress him?  By what appeal?  The pathetic? the tenderly
+winsome? the gay?  She would be gay.  Marvellous lies occurred to
+her--a multitude of them: there was no end to her fertility in
+deception.  And she would excite his jealousy.  Upon that feeling she
+would play.  She would blow hot; she would blow cold.  She would reduce
+him to agony--the most poignant agony he had ever suffered.  Then she
+would win him.
+
+To this end, acting according to the enlightenment of her kind, she
+plied her pencil and puffs; and when, at last, she stood before the
+mirror, new gowned, beautiful after the conventions of her kind, blind
+to the ghastliness of it, ignorant of the secret of her strength, she
+had a triumphant consciousness of power.
+
+"He'll love me," she thought, with a snap of the teeth.  "He's got to!"
+
+
+Jim Millette knocked--and pushed the door ajar, and diffidently
+intruded his head.
+
+"Hello, Jim!" she cried.  "Come in!"
+
+The man would not enter.  "I can't, Millie," he faltered.   "I just got
+a minute."
+
+"Oh, come on in!" said she, contemptuously.  "Come in and tell me about
+it.  What did you do it for, Jim?  You got good and even, didn't you?
+Eh, Jim?" she taunted.  "You got even!"
+
+"It wasn't that, Millie," he protested.
+
+"Oh, wasn't it?" she shrilled.
+
+"No, it wasn't, Millie.  I didn't have no grudge against you."
+
+"Then what was it?  Come in and tell me!" she laughed.  "You dassn't,
+Jim!  You're afraid! come in," she flashed, "and I'll make you lick my
+shoes!  And when you're crawling on the floor, Jim, like a slimy dog,
+I'll kick you out.  Hear me, you pup?  What you take my child in there
+for?" she cried.  "Hear me?  Aw, you pup!" she snarled.  "You're afraid
+to come in!"
+
+"Don't go on, Millie," he warned her.  "Don't you go on like that.
+Maybe I _will_ come in.  And if I do, my girl, it won't be me that'll
+be lickin' shoes.  It might be _you_!"
+
+"Me!" she scorned.  "You ain't got no hold on me no more.  Come in and
+try it!"
+
+The man hesitated.
+
+"Come on!" she taunted.
+
+"I ain't coming in, Millie," he answered.  "I didn't come up to come
+in.  I just come up to tell you I was sorry."
+
+She laughed.
+
+"I didn't know you was there, Millie," the man continued.  "If I'd
+knowed you was with the Forty Flirts, I wouldn't have took the boy
+there.  And I come up to tell you so."
+
+Overcome by a sudden and agonizing recollection of the scene, she put
+her hands to her face.
+
+"And I come up to tell you something else," the acrobat continued,
+speaking gently.  "I tell you, Millie, you better look out.  If you
+ain't careful, you'll lose him for good.  He took it hard, Millie.
+Hard!  It broke the little fellow all up.  It hurt him--awful!"
+
+She began to walk the floor.  In the room the light was failing.  It
+was growing dark--an angry portent--over the roofs of the opposite city.
+
+"Do you want him back?" the man asked.
+
+"Want him back!" she cried.
+
+"Then," said he, his voice soft, grave, "take care!"
+
+"Want him back?" she repeated, beginning, now, by habit, to tear at her
+nails.  "I got to have him back!  He's mine, ain't he?  Didn't I bear
+him?  Didn't I nurse him?  Wasn't it me that--that--_made_ him?  He's
+my kid, I tell you--_mine_!  And I want him back!  Oh, I want him so!"
+
+The man entered; but the woman seemed not to know it.  He regarded her
+compassionately.
+
+"That there curate ain't got no right to him," she complained.  "_He_
+didn't have nothing to do with the boy.  It was only me and Dick.
+What's he sneaking around here for--taking Dick's boy away?  The boy's
+half mine and half Dick's.  The curate ain't got no share.  And now
+Dick's dead--and he's _all_ mine!  The curate ain't got nothing to do
+with it.  We don't want no curate here.  I raised that boy for myself.
+I didn't do it to give him to no curate.  What right's he got coming
+around here--getting a boy he didn't have no pain to bear or trouble to
+raise?  I tell you _I_ got that boy.  He's mine--and I want him!"
+
+"But you give the boy to the curate, Millie!"
+
+"No, I didn't!" she lied.  "He took the boy.  He come sneaking around
+here making trouble.  _I_ didn't give him no boy.  And I want him
+back," she screamed, in a gust of passion.  "I want my boy back!"
+
+A rumble of thunder--failing, far off--came from the sea.
+
+"Millie," the acrobat persisted, "you said you wasn't fit to bring him
+up."
+
+"I ain't," she snapped.  "But I don't care.  He's mine--and I'll have
+him."
+
+The man shrugged his shoulders.
+
+"Jim," the woman said, now quiet, laying her hands on the acrobat's
+shoulders, looking steadily into his eyes, "that boy's mine.  I want
+him--I want him--back.  But I don't want him if he don't love me.  And
+if I can't have him--if I can't have him----"
+
+"Millie!"
+
+"I'll be all alone, Jim--and I'll want----"
+
+He caught her hands.  "Me?" he asked.  "Will you want me?"
+
+"I don't know."
+
+"Millie," he said, speaking hurriedly, "_won't_ you want me?  I've took
+up with the little Tounson blonde.  But _she_ wouldn't care.  You know
+how it goes, Millie.  It's only for business.  She and me team up.
+That's all.  She wouldn't care.  And if you want me--if you want me,
+Millie, straight and regular, for better or for worse--if you want me
+that way, Millie----"
+
+"Don't, Jim!"
+
+He let her hands fall--and drew away.  "I love you too much," he said,
+"to butt in now.  But if the boy goes back on you, Millie, I'll
+come--again.  You'll need me then--and that's why I'll come.  I don't
+want him to go back on you.  I want him to love you still.  It's
+because of the way you love him that I love you--in the way I do.  It
+ain't easy for me to say this.  It ain't easy for me to want to give
+you up.  But you're that kind of a woman, Millie.  You're that
+kind--since you got the boy.  I want to give you up.  You'd be better
+off with him.  You're--you're--_holier_--when you're with that child.
+You'd break your poor heart without that boy of yours.  And I want you
+to have him--to love him--to be loved by him.  If he comes back, you'll
+not see me again.  I've lived a life that makes me--not fit--to be with
+no child like him.  But so help me God!" the man passionately declared,
+"I hope he don't turn you down!"
+
+"You're all right, Jim!" she sobbed.  "You're all right!"
+
+"I'm going now," he said, quietly.  "But I got one more thing to say.
+Don't fool that boy!"
+
+She looked up.
+
+"Don't fool him," the man repeated.  "You'll lose him if you do."
+
+"Not fool him?  It's so easy, Jim!"
+
+"Ah, Millie," he said, with a hopeless gesture, "you're blind.  You
+don't know your own child.  You're blind--you're just blind!"
+
+"What you mean, Jim?" she demanded.
+
+"You don't know what he loves you for."
+
+"What does he love me for?"
+
+The man was at the door.  "Because," he answered, turning, "you're his
+mother!"
+
+
+It was not yet nine o'clock.  The boy would still be in the church.
+She must not yet set out for the park.  So she lighted the lamp.  For a
+time she posed and grimaced before the mirror.  When she was perfect in
+the part, she sat in the rocking-chair at the broad window, there to
+rehearse the deceptions it was in her mind to practice.  But while she
+watched the threatening shadows gather, the lights on the river flash
+into life and go drifting aimlessly away, her mind strayed from this
+purpose, her willful heart throbbed with sweeter feeling--his childish
+voice, the depths of his eyes, the grateful weight of his head upon her
+bosom.  Why had he loved her?  Because she was his mother!  A forgotten
+perception returned to illuminate her way--a perception, never before
+reduced to formal terms, that her virtue, her motherly tenderness, were
+infinitely more appealing to him than the sum of her other attractions.
+
+She started from the chair--her breast heaving with despairing alarm.
+Again she stood before the mirror--staring with new-opened eyes at the
+painted face, the gaudy gown: and by these things she was now horrified.
+
+"He won't love me!" she thought.  "Not this way.  He--he--couldn't!"
+
+It struck the hour.
+
+"Nine o'clock!" she cried.  "I got to _do_ something!"
+
+She looked helplessly about the room.  Why had he loved her?  Because
+she was his mother!  She would be his mother--nothing more: just his
+mother.  She would go to him with that appeal.  She would not seek to
+win him.  She would but tell him that she was his mother.  She would be
+his mother--true and tender and holy.  He would not resist her plea....
+This determined, she acted resolutely and in haste: she stripped off
+the gown, flung it on the floor, kicked the silken heap under the bed;
+she washed the paint from her face, modestly laid her hair, robed
+herself anew.  And when again, with these new, seeing eyes, she looked
+into the glass, she found that she was young, unspoiled--still lovely:
+a sweetly wistful woman, whom he resembled.  Moreover, there came to
+transform her, suddenly, gloriously, a revelation: that of the
+spiritual significance of her motherhood.
+
+"Thank God!" she thought, uplifted by this vision.  "Oh, thank God!
+I'm like them other people.  I'm fit to bring him up!"
+
+It thundered ominously.
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _Nearing the Sea_]
+
+
+
+
+[Illustration: Headpiece to _The Last Appeal_]
+
+
+
+
+_THE LAST APPEAL_
+
+She sat waiting for him at the bench by the lilac bush.  He was late,
+she thought--strangely late.  She wondered why.  It was dark.  The
+night was close and hot.  There was no breath of air stirring in the
+park.  From time to time the lightning flashed.  In fast lessening
+intervals came the thunder.  Presently she caught ear of his step on
+the pavement--still distant: approaching, not from the church, but from
+the direction of the curate's home.
+
+"And he's not running!" she thought, quick to take alarm.
+
+They were inexplicable--these lagging feet.  He had never before
+dawdled on the way.  Her alarm increased.  She waited anxiously--until,
+with eyes downcast, he stood before her.
+
+"Richard!" she tenderly said.
+
+"I'm here, mother," he answered; but he did not look at her.
+
+She put her arms around him.  "Your mother," she whispered, while she
+kissed him, "is glad--to feel you--lying here."
+
+He lay quiet against her--his face on her bosom.  She was thrilled by
+this sweet pressure.
+
+"Have you been happy?" she asked.
+
+"No."
+
+"Nor I, dear!"
+
+He turned his face--not to her: to the flaming cross above the church.
+She had invited a question.  But he made no response.
+
+"Nor I," she repeated.
+
+Still he gazed at the cross.  It was shining in a black cloud--high in
+the sky.  She felt him tremble.
+
+"Hold me tight!" he said.
+
+She drew him to her--glad to have him ask her to: having no disquieting
+question.
+
+"Tighter!" he implored.
+
+She rocked him.  "Hush, dear!" she crooned.  "You're safe--with your
+mother.  What frightens you?"
+
+"The cross!" he sobbed.
+
+God knows! 'twas a pity that his childish heart misinterpreted the
+message of the cross--changing his loving purpose into sin.  But the
+misinterpretation was not forever to endure....
+
+
+The wind began to stir the leaves--tentative gusts: swirling eagerly
+through the park.  There was a flash--an instant clap of thunder,
+breaking overhead, rumbling angrily away.  Two men ran past.  Great
+drops of rain splashed on the pavement.
+
+"Let us go home," the boy said.
+
+"Not yet!" she protested.  "Oh, not yet!"
+
+He escaped from her arms.
+
+"Don't go, Richard!" she whimpered.  "Please don't, dear! Not yet.
+I--I'm--oh, I'm not ready to say good-night.  Not yet!"
+
+He took her hand.  "Come, mother!" he said.
+
+"Not yet!"
+
+He dropped her hand--sprang away from her with a startled little cry.
+"Oh, mother," he moaned, "don't you want me?"
+
+"Home?" she asked, blankly.  "Home--with me?"
+
+"Oh, yes, mother! Let me go home.  Quick I Let us go....  The curate
+says I know best.  I went straight to him--yesterday--and told him.
+And he said I was wiser than he....  And I said good-bye.  Don't send
+me back.  For, oh, I want to go home--with you!"
+
+She opened her arms.  At that moment a brilliant flash of lightning
+illuminated the world.  For the first time the child caught sight of
+her face--the sweet, real face of his mother: now radiant, touched by
+the finger of the Good God Himself.
+
+"Is it you?" he whispered.
+
+"I am your mother."
+
+He leaped into her arms--found her wet eyes with his lips.  "Mother!"
+he cried.
+
+"My son!" she said.
+
+He turned again to the flaming cross--a little smile of defiance upon
+his lips.  But the defiance passed swiftly: for it was then revealed to
+him that his mother was good; and he knew that what the cross signified
+would continue with him, wherever he went, that goodness and peace
+might abide within his heart.  Hand in hand, while the thunder still
+rolled and the rain came driving with the wind, they hurried away
+towards the Box Street tenement....
+
+
+Let them go!  Why not?  Let them depart into their world!  It needs
+them.  They will glorify it.  Nor will they suffer loss.  Let them go!
+Love flourishes in the garden of the world we know.  Virtue is forever
+in bloom.  Let them go to their place!  Why should we wish to deprive
+the unsightly wilderness of its flowers?  Let the tenderness of this
+mother and son continue to grace it!
+
+
+[Illustration: Tailpiece to _The Last Appeal_]
+
+
+
+
+THE END
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+
+End of the Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan
+
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