Deficient Saints by Marshall Saunders

In the dining-room of the old stone Mercer mansion in the town of Rossignol, Me., Mrs. Hippolyta Prymmer, sanctified vessel and uncommon saint, charter member of the church of the United Brethren, chief leader in religious work, and waggishly nicknamed by the ungodly about her "the elect lady," sat looking earnestly at her death-book.

This death-book was her never-failing source of interest and chastened entertainment. In it she had enrolled the names of the various friends of whom she had been deprived by death, and for its enlargement and adornment she collected photographs, cuttings from newspapers, and items of information, with an assiduity superior to that of some of her acquaintances, who prepared scrap-books merely for purposes of diversion and amusement.