"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....