own eyes looked like the young husband's.

For fifteen years this mother had loved and worked for Annie, her whole
being going out to bless her one child. I had grown fond of them; and in
small ways, with books and flowers, outings and simple pleasures, I had
made myself dear to them. The end of the delicate girl's life had not
seemed so near, though her doom had been hovering about her for years.

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
shoulder