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 the hot tears seeping through their handkerchiefs. At eleven o'clock a carriage and a black hearse embossed in Grecian urns drew up in the rain-swept street. Windows shrieked upward and heads leaned out. A passing child, scuttling along the bubbly sidewalks, ran his forefinger along the sweating glass sides of the hearse, and a buttoned-up, oilskinned driver flecked at him with his whip. Street-cars grazed close to the carriage-wheels, and once a grocery's delivery automobile skidded from its course and bumped smartly into the rear. The horses plunged and backed in their traces. Mame reached her yellow head far out of the window. "They're here, Til. I wish you could see the hearse--one that any one could be proud to ride in! Here, let me help you on with your coat, dearie. I hope it's warm enough; but, anyway, it's black. Say, if Angie could only see how genteel everything is! The men are comin' up--here, lemme go to the door. Good morning, gen'l'men! Step right in."