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: