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