The marriage duly takes place, but it is soon evident that the poor Lady Bountiful will not allow her change of condition to make any difference to the vigour and persistency of her charitable appeals. She continues the old firm and the old business under a new name, and takes advantage of her independence to enlarge immensely the field of her operations. No bazaar can be organised without her and as a stall-holder she is absolutely unrivalled. Missions, teas, treats, penny dinners, sea-side excursions, the building of halls, the endowment of a bishopric, the foundation of a flannel club, all depend upon her inexhaustible energy in begging. Nor is she satisfied with public institutions. Private applicants of all kinds gather about her. Destitute but undeserving widows, orphans who have brought the grey hairs of their parents to the grave, old soldiers and stranded foreigners batten upon her capacity for taking advantage of her friends. For it must be well understood that the restricted limits of her husband's means and his parsimony prevent her from contributing anything herself to her innumerable schemes except a lavish expenditure of pens and ink and paper with which to set forth her appeals. Yet in this she is a true altruist. For she knows and tells everybody how delightful and blessed it is to give, and accordingly in the purest spirit of self-denial she permits her friends to dispense the cash, whilst she herself is satisfied with the credit. Like a mighty river, she receives the offerings of innumerable tributary streams, which lose their identity in hers, and are swept away under her name, to be finally merged in the great ocean of charitable effort. Who does not know, that it was mainly owing to her indefatigable efforts, that the new wing was added to the Disabled District Visitors' Refuge, and who has not seen at least one of the many subscription lists to which "per Mrs. So-and-So" invariably contributed the largest amount? Is it not also on record that at the reception which followed the public opening of this wing, when the collecting ladies advanced to deposit their collections at the feet of presiding Royalty, it was the Poor Lady Bountiful who brought the largest, the most beautifully embroidered and the fullest purse? It was felt on all hands, that "the dear Princess" had only done what an English Princess might properly be expected to do, when she afterwards, under the inspiration of the cunning Vicar, showered a few words of golden public praise into the palpitating bosom of the champion purse-bearer.