“Well, all day yestiddy she was out of her head with a high fever. But just before she died she come to and her mind cleared up. The doctor was gone--old Doctor Lake. He'd done all he could for her and he left for his home about midnight, leavin' word that he was to be called if there was any change. Only there wasn't time to call him; it all came so sudden. “I was settin' by her when she opened her eyes and whispered, sort of gaspin', and called me by my name. Well, you could 'a' knocked me down with a feather. From the time she started sinkin' nobody thought she'd ever get her senses back. She called me, and I leaned over her and asked her what it was she wanted, and she told me. She knew she was dyin'. She told me she'd been raised right, which I knew already without her tellin' me, and she said she'd been a Christian girl before she made her big mistake. And she told me she wanted to be buried like a Christian, from a regular church, with a sermon and flowers and music and all that. She made me promise that I'd see it was done just that way. She made me put my hand in her hand and promise her. She shut her eyes then, like she was satisfied, and in a minute or two after that she died, still holdin' on tight to my hand. There wasn't nobody else there--just me and her--and it was about a quarter past four o'clock in the mornin'.” “Well, ma'am, I'm very sorry for that poor child. I am so,” said Judge Priest, and his tone showed he meant it; “yit still I don't understand your purpose in comin' to me, without you need money to bury her.” His hand went toward his flank, where he kept his wallet. “Keep your hand out of your pocket, please, sir,” said the woman. “I ain't callin' on anybody for help in a money way. That's all been attended to. I telephoned the undertaker the first thing this mornin'. “It's something else I wanted to speak with you about. Well, I didn't hardly wait to get my breakfast down before I started off to keep my word to Viola. And I've been on the constant go ever since. I've rid miles on the street cars, and I've walked afoot until the bottoms of my feet both feel like boils right this minute, tryin' to find somebody that was fitten to preach a sermon over that dead girl. “First I made the rounds of the preachers of all the big churches. Doctor Cavendar was my first choice; from what I've heard said about him he's a mighty good man. But he ain't in town. His wife told me he'd gone off to district conference, whatever that is. So then I went to all the others, one by one. I even went 'way up on Alabama Street--to that there little mission church in the old Acme rink. The old man that runs the mission--I forget his name--he does a heap of work among poor people and down-and-out people, and I guess he might've said yes, only he's right bad off himself. He's sick in bed.” She laughed mirthlessly.