"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!" "You 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."