I had thought it all over as I took the Easter lilies from my window-shelf and wrapped them in thick papers and hid them out of the storm under my cloak. I knew there would be no other flowers in their wretched room. How endless was the way to this East-Side tenement house! No elevated roads, no rapid transit across the great city then as there are now. At last we reached the place. On the street stood the canvas-covered hearse, known only to the poor. We climbed flight after flight of narrow dark stairs to the small upper rooms. In the middle of the floor stood a stained coffin, lined with stiff, rattling cambric and cheap gauze, resting on uncovered trestles of wood. We each took the mother's hand and stood a moment with her, silent. All hope had gone out of her face. She shed no tears, but as I held her cold hand I felt a shudder go over her, but she neither spoke nor sobbed. The driving storm had made us late, and the plain, hard-working people sat stiffly against the walls. Some one gave us chairs and we sat close to the mother. The minister came in, a blunt, hard-looking man, self-sufficient and formal. A woman said the undertaker brought him. Icier than the pitiless storm outside, yes, colder than ice were his words. He read a few verses from the Bible, and warned "the bereaved mother against rebellion at the divine decrees." He made a prayer and was gone. A dreadful hush fell over the small room. I whispered to the mother and asked: "Why did you wait so long to send for me? All this would have been different." With a kind of stare, she looked at me. "I can't remember why I didn't send," she said, her hand to her head, and added: "I seemed to die, too, and forget, till they brought a coffin. Then I knew it all." The undertaker came and bustled about. He looked at myself and Parepa, as if to say: "It's time to go." The wretched funeral service was over. Without a word Parepa rose and walked to the head of the coffin. She laid her white scarf on an empty chair, threw her cloak back from her shoulders, where it fell in long, soft, black lines from her noble figure like the drapery of mourning. She laid her soft, fair hand on the cold forehead, passed it tenderly over the wasted delicate face, looked down at the dead girl a moment, and moved my Easter lilies from the stained box to the thin fingers, then lifted up her head, and with illumined eyes sang the glorious melody: "Angels, ever bright and fair, Take, oh! take her to thy care." Her magnificent voice rose and fell in all its richness and power and pity and beauty! She looked above the dingy room and the tired faces of men and women, the hard hands and the struggling hearts. She threw back her head and sang till the choirs of paradise must have paused to listen to the Easter music of that day. She passed her hand caressingly over the girl's soft dark hair, and sang on--and on--"Take--oh! take her to thy care!"