ou tell the girls at the store, Mame, I--I'm much obliged for the
flowers. Angie would have loved 'em, too; but gettin' 'em when she was
dead didn't give her the chance to enjoy them."

"She's up in Heaven, sitting next to the gold-and-ivory throne, now; and
she knows they're here, Til--she can look right down and see 'em."

"I'm glad they sent her carnations, then--she loved 'em so!"

"I kinda hate to leave you at noon, Til--the funeral and all."

"It's all right, Mame. You can look at her asleep before you go."

They tiptoed to the front room and raised the shades gently. Angie lay
in the cold sleep of death, her wax-like hands folded on her flat
breast, and quiet, as if the grubbing years had fallen from her like a
husk; and in their place a madonna calm, a sleep, and a forgetting. They
regarded her; the sobs rising in their throats.

"She looks just like she fell asleep, Til--only younger-like. And, say,
but that is a swell coffin, dearie!"

Like Niobe all tears, Tillie dabbed at her eyes and dewy cheeks.

"She was always kicking--poor dear!--at having to pay a dime a week to
the Mutual Aid; but she'd be glad if she could see--first-class
undertaking and all--everything paid for."

"I've kicked more'n once, too, but I'm glad I belong now. Honest, for a
dime a week--silver handles and all. Poor Angie! Poor Angie!"

Poor Angie, indeed! who never in all the forty-odd years of her life had
been so rich; with her head on a decent satin pillow, and a white
carnation at her breast; her black-and-white dotted foulard dress draped
skilfully about her; and her feet, that would never more ache, resting
upward like a doll's in its box!

"Oh, Gawd, ain't I all alone, though; ain't I, though?"

"Aw, Til!"

"I--I--Oh--"

"Watch out, honey--you're crushing all the grand white carnations the
girls sent! Say, wouldn't Angie be pleased! 'Rest in Peace,' it says.
See, honey! Don't you cry, for it says for her to rest in peace; and
there's the beautiful white dove on top and all--a swell white bird.
Don't you cry, honey."

"I--I won't."

"Me and George won't forget you. Honest, you never knew any one more
sympathizing-like than George; there ain't a funeral that boy misses if
he can help it. He's good at pall-bearing, too. If it was Sunday instead
of Friday that boy would be right on tap. There, dearie, don't cry."

Again Mame's tears of real sympathy mingled with her friend's; and they
wept in a tight embrace, with