dy 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