The Project Gutenberg EBook of The Mother, by Norman Duncan

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Title: The Mother

Author: Norman Duncan

Illustrator: H. E. Fritz

Release Date: December 17, 2008 [EBook #27550]

Language: English

Character set encoding: ASCII

*** START OF THIS PROJECT GUTENBERG EBOOK THE MOTHER ***

Produced by Al Haines

[Illustration: Cover]

[Illustration: The Mother

[Frontispiece: The Mother]

[Illustration: Title page]

The Mother

by

Norman Duncan

Fleming H. Revell Company

Publishers

[Illustration: Copyright]

Copyright 1905

by

Fleming H. Revell Company

New York -- Chicago -- Toronto

[Illustration: Dedication]

To

E. H. D.

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The Decorations

In This Book Were

Designed by H. E. Fritz

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Contents

BY PROXY
THE RIVER
A GARDEN OF LIES
THE CELEBRITY IN LOVE
AT MIDNIGHT
A MEETING BY CHANCE
RENUNCIATION
IN THE CURRENT
THE CHORISTER
ALIENATION
A CHILD'S PRAYER

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MR. PODDLE'S FINALE
HIS MOTHER
NEARING THE SEA
THE LAST APPEAL

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_BY PROXY_

It will be recalled without effort--possibly, indeed, without
interest--that the obsequies of the old Senator Boligand were a
distinguished success: a fashionable, proper function, ordered by the
young widow with exquisite taste, as all the world said, and conducted
without reproach, as the undertaker and the clergy very heartily
agreed. At the Church of the Lifted Cross, the incident of the child,
the blonde lady and the mysteriously veiled man, who sat in awe and
bewildered amazement where the shadows gave deepest seclusion, escaped
notice. Not that the late Senator Boligand was in life aware of the
existence of the child or the lady or the strange fellow with the veil.
Nothing of the sort. The one was the widow of Dick Slade, the other
his son, born in wedlock; and the third was the familiar counsellor and
intimate of them all. The Senator was for once turned to good account:
was made contributor to the sweetness of life, to the comfo