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!"
The mother's face grew rapt and white. I held her hands and watched her eyes. Suddenly she threw my hand off and knelt at Parepa's feet, close to the wooden trestles. She locked her fingers together, tears and sobs breaking forth. She prayed aloud that God would bless the angel singing for Annie. A patient smile settled about her lips, the light came back into her poor, dulled eyes, and she kissed her daughter's face with a love beyond all interpretation or human speech. I led her back to her seat as the last glorious notes of Parepa's voice rose triumphant over all earthly pain and sorrow.