"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."
Miss Angie's undertaker was all that she could have wished—a deep-eyed young man, with his carefully brushed hair parted to the extreme left and swept sidewise across his head; and his hand inserted like a Napoleon's between the second and third buttons of his long, black broadcloth coat.
"Good morning, Miss Prokes! It's a sad day, ain't it?"
Tears trembled along her lids.