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