you here alone? If Higgs don't like two of us being away from the
counter the old skinflint knows what he can do! He can regulate our
livin' with his stop-watch, but not our dyin'."

"There ain't nothin' for you to do round here, Mame--honest, there
ain't--except ride 'way out there in the rain and lose half a day.
She--she's all ready in her black-silk dress--all I got to do is follow
her out now."

"Gawd! What a day, too!"

"Carrie and Lil was going to stay with me this morning, too; but I says
to them, I says, there wasn't any use gettin' 'em down on us at the
store. What's the use of us all getting docked when you can't do any
good here? The undertaker's a nice-mannered man, and he'll ride--ride
out with me."

"You all alone and--"

"Everything's fixed--they sent up her benefit money from the store, and
I got enough for expenses and all; and she--she wouldn't want you to.
She was a great one herself for never missin' a day at the store."

Large tears welled in Tillie's eyes.

"She was a grand woman!" said Mame, warm tears in her own eyes, taking a
bite out of her slice of bread and washing it down with a swab of
coffee. "There--there wasn't a girl in the corsets wasn't crying
yesterday when they was gettin' up the collection for her flowers."

Tillie's lower lip quivered, and she set down her coffee untasted.

"She might have been a man-hater and strict with me, and all that--but
what did she have out of it? She was nothing but a drudge all her life.
Since I was a cash-girl she stuck to me like she--was my mother,
all-righty; and once, when I--I had the mumps, she--she--"

Tillie melted into the wide-armed embrace of her friend, and together
they wept, with the tap-tapping of the rain on the window behind them,
and the coffee-pot boiling over through the spout, singing as it doused
the gas-flames.

"She used to mend my s-stockings on--on the sly."

"She was always so careful and all about you keepin' the right
company--it was a grand thing for you that you had her to live with--I
always used to say that to maw. And what a trade she had! She could look
at your figure and lace you up in a straight-front quicker'n any of the
young girls in the department."

"I--I know it. Why, even in the Subway she could tell by just lookin' at
a hip whether it was wearin' one of her double bones or girdle tops. If
ever a soul deserved a raise it was Angie. She'd 'a' got it, too!"

"She was a grand woman, Til!"

"Y