That afternoon, at the time appointed for the ceremony, when I turned from Flying Sparrow Street into Tube Rose Lane a strange sight met my eyes.  It was clean.  For once in the history of the Quarter poverty and crime had taken a bath and were indulging in an open holiday.  It had gone still farther.  From the lowliest hut of straw and plaster to the little better house of the chief criminal, cheap, but very gay decorations fluttered in honor of the coming hospital.  The people stood about in small groups.  The many kimonos, well patched in varied colors, lent a touch of brilliancy to the sordid alleyway, haunted with ghosts of men and women, dead to all things spiritual.

Here and there policemen strolled, always in pairs.  Whenever they drew near, and until they were past, the talking groups fell silent, and before an open door, or window a blank white screen was softly shifted.  This coming from cover by the inhabitants and premeditatedly giving a visible sign of their existence was a supreme tribute to the woman who had lived among them successfully, because hers was the courage of the sanctified, her bravery that of love.

The day sparkled with winter’s bright beauty.  The sun had wooed an ancient plum tree into blossoming long before its time.  It spread its dainty flowers on the soft straw bed of an old gray roof.  A playful wind caught up the petals, sending the white blossoms flying across the heads of the unjust into the unclean ditches where they covered stagnation with a frail loveliness.

For the time at least degradation hid its face.  Though poverty and sin were abroad, peace and good will might have been their next-door neighbors had it not been for a certain quality in the atmosphere, invisible but powerful, which caused a feeling that behind it all, there was an evil something that sneered alike at life and beauty; that had for its motto lust and greed, and mercilessly demanded as tribute the soul of every inhabitant.

Collected crime at bay was an unyielding force not easily reckoned with.  The fact that one small woman, with only faith to back her, was battling against it single-handed, sent Jane Gray so high up in my estimation that I could barely see her as she floated in the clouds.

I saw my companion in an entirely new light as I joined the throngs gathered about the space where the raising of the roof was taking place.  The ceremony here was brief.  With countless ropes tied to the joined roof as it lay on the ground, the eager coolies stood ready for the signal to pull aloft the structure and guide it to the posts placed ready to receive it.

Jane walked to the cleared center and stood waiting to speak.  There was instant silence when the crowd saw her.  With simple words she thanked the workmen for their interest and the many half-days’ labor they had contributed, then she raised her hand, and with great shouting and cheering the roof of Jane’s long-dreamed-of refuge for sinners, sick and hopeless, was safely hoisted to its place.