A Waif's Progress by Rhoda Broughton — Read

After all, if she had but known, it would not make much difference to Lady Bletchley what or what manner of assistants Mrs. Slammer would have at her stall at the Fancy Fair for All England Cataleptics, which was to be held under Distinguished Patronage in the Albert Hall at mid-May, since at that date she herself had already been two months dead. The sequence of events which led to that catastrophe was a now not uncommon one. A vital energy weakened by over-exertion, a chill, a consultation, a successful operation -- in medical parlance, a successful operation is often one in which the patient dies next day, instead of immediately under the surgeon's knife -- followed two days later by a paragraph in all the morning papers: "We regret to announce the death, which took place at an early hour yesterday morning, from appendicitis, at her residence in Hill Street, of Lady Bletchley. The deceased lady, better known as Mrs. Glanville -- her husband, Lord Bletchley, having succeeded to the title by the death of the fourth Lord only in January last -- was a wellknown figure in social and philanthropic circles, where her loss will be long and deeply deplored. She was -- -- " Then followed a lengthy list of societies, associations, organizations, of hospitals, institutions, and institutes, in connection with which Lady Bletchley had cut a more or less prominent figure.

Bonnybell read the flaming obituary notices carefully to the end, and then laid down the papers -- her eyes felt tired -- with a sigh. "Poor dear thing, how she would have enjoyed them!"