There was honest satisfaction in the town when it was known that the Mayor had consented to remain another year in office. Most people agreed that it was a good thing for Blackhampton. But the Mayoress took to her bed. Could she have had her way she would never have got up again. For many years now life had been a nightmare of ever-growing duties, of ever-increasing responsibilities. Her conservative temperament resisted change. She had not wanted to leave the Duke of Wellington for the comparative luxury of Waterloo Villa, she had not wanted to leave Waterloo Villa for the defiant grandeur of Strathfieldsaye. When she was faced with a whole year as Mayoress she fully expected to die of it, and perhaps she would have died of it but for the oblique influence of Gertrude Preston; but now she was threatened with a further twelve months of the same embarrassing public grandeur she was compelled to review her attitude towards an early demise. Maria knew that if she allowed her light to be put out Gerty had the makings of a highly qualified successor. No one was better at shaking hands with a grandee, no one had a happier knack of saying the right word at the right time; and neither the Mayor nor the Mayoress, particularly the latter, knew what they would have done without her. Gerty, in fact, had become a kind of unofficial standard bearer and henchwoman of a great man. Every piece of gossip she heard about him was faithfully reported, every paragraph that appeared in the paper was brought to his notice, she flattered him continually and made him out to be no end of a fellow; and in consequence poor Maria was bitten with such a furious jealousy that she would like to have killed her designing but indispensable step-sister. When Maria took to her bed, the Mayor promptly requested the accomplished Gertrude to do what she could in the matter. "Josiah, she must show Spirit." As always that was her specific for the hapless Maria, and at the request of his worship she went at once to the big bedroom, from whose large bay windows a truly noble view of the whole city and the open country beyond was to be obtained, and as Josiah himself expressed it, "proceeded to read the riot act to the Mayoress." The Mayoress was in bed, therefore she had to take it lying down. For that matter it was her nature to take all things lying down. But in her heart she had never so deeply resented the obtrusion of Gerty as at this moment. She wanted never to get up any more, but if she didn't get up any more this meddlesome and dangerous rival would do as she liked with Josiah, and in all human probability as soon as the lawful Mayoress was decently and comfortably in her grave she would marry him.