"With a last fond touch I smoothed my hair, which had got rather ruffled in the catastrophe, and extracting with infinite agony a puff from my pocket I dabbed it spasmodically over my face. I dared not consult my hand-mirror, I was afraid it would reveal a distorted countenance and unnecessarily sadden my last moments. Whatever my appearance, I had done my best for it, and I wanted to die with the consciousness of duty fulfilled. Murmuring a prayer that those who found my body would not imitate me in judging by appearances, if they should prove discreditable after all, I closed my eyes upon the world in which I had been so young and happy. My whole life passed in review before me, all my dearly loved bonnets, my entire wardrobe from infancy upwards. Now I was an innocent child with a white sash and pink ribbons, straying amid the sunny meadows and plucking the daisies to adorn my hats; anon a merry maiden sporting amid the jocund schoolboys and receiving tribute in toffy; then again a sedate virgin in original gowns and tailor-made jackets. Suddenly a strange idea jostled through the throng of bitter-sweet memories. _Threepenny Bits!_ "The old gentleman's next-of-kin would come in for three thousand pounds! I should die and leave nothing to my relatives but regrets; my generous brother would be forever inconsolable now, and my funeral might be mean and unworthy. And yet if the old misogynist had only been courteous enough to lend me the paper, seeing I had nothing to read, it might have been found on my body. _De mortuis nil nisi bonum._ Why reveal his breach of etiquette to the world? Why should I not enable him to achieve posthumous politeness! Besides, his heir was a hypocritical rogue, and it were a crime against society to place so large a sum at his disposal. Overwhelmed as I was by the agonies of death, I steeled myself to this last duty. I wriggled painfully towards the corpse, and stretching out my neatly-gloved fingers, with a last mighty effort I pulled the paper cautiously from the dead hand which lay heavy upon it. Then I clasped it passionately to my heart and died." [Illustration: _I pulled the paper from the dead hand._] "Died?" echoed Lillie excitedly. "Well--lost consciousness. You are particular to a shade. Myself I see no difference between a fainting fit and death except that one attack of the latter is fatal." "As to that," answered Lillie. "I consider we die every night and dream we are alive. To fall asleep is to die painlessly. It is, perhaps, a pity we are resurrected to tea and toast and toilette. However, I am glad you did not really die. I feared I was in for a tale of re-incarnation or spooks or hypnotism or telepathy or astral bodies. One hears so many marvellous stories, now that we have left off believing in miracles. Really, man's credulity is the perpetual miracle."