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Show BROADWAY AND MAIN STREET Lace Negligee, Little Lie Make Dying Woman Happy ! By BILLY ROSE The other day I got the following letter from a lady who is convalescing con-valescing in a Montreal hospital: Dear Mr. Rose: Three weeks ago I was operated on for a leg infection, and since then I've been taking it easy, a little too sick to leave the hospital and a little too well to keep from having the fidgets. Consequently, I've been something some-thing of a busybody, wandering around rooms and corridors and passing the time of day with other patients. During my wheelchair travels I happened to come across a story which you might like to use in your rnlllmn It has to do with a black lace negligee that I got for Christmas a couple of years ago one of those lovely bits of peek- a-boo that every ! woman adores. Unfortunately, Un-fortunately, however, how-ever, I'm more j the pajama type, ' and so ever since I got it it's been s packed away in a j bureau drawer. When I was A Y. 1 ' f ! OF COURSE, we all skedaddled when her husband was wheeled in, his head bandaged and most of his body in a cast. And a couple of hours later the doctor came and told me that Mrs. Benoise wanted to thank me for the use of the negligee. negli-gee. Well, she could hardly talk, she was that excited. Her husband, it seemed, had complimented her on how lovely she looked and told her that as soon as he got out 6f the hospital he was going to buy her a dozen negligees like the one she was wearing. And just before they wheeled him out he promised her that he would be around the next morning, and asked her to please wear the negligee again. He didn't get back, however, because be-cause that night Mrs. Benoise died, and everything considered I guess it was just as well. Yesterday, when the doctor came in to see me, we got to talking about Mrs. Benoise. "I'm glad I finally found some use for that silly negligee," I said. "At least Mr. Benoise will always remember how pretty his wife looked the last time he saw her." "1 bate to disappoint you," the doctor said, "but Mr. Benoise couldn't see her. He lost bis sight in that car smash-up, and before I brought him into his wife's room I carefully briefed him on her make-up and how she looked in your negligee." Anyway, that's the way It happened, hap-pened, Mr. Rose, and perhaps if you shuffle the facts around a bit it might make a story. Sincerely, Charlotte Ferguson. ward the heart. And as If that weren't enough trouble, shortly after the woman had checked into the hospital her husband had been badly hurt in an auto crash he had driven his car head-on into a truck which was parked without lights. Last week when the paralysis got up to within inches of Mrs. Benoise's heart the doctors decided de-cided to let the couple see each other for that would probably be the last time. I was in Mrs. Benoise's Ben-oise's room when they told her about the visit, but instead of pepping her up it seemed to make her more miserable than ever. When I asked her what was the matter, she said it was probably silly but she knew she looked a ' sight and she hated for her bus-band bus-band to see her in hospital clothes with her hair and face not fixed. I had a talk with the nurse, and with the permission of the doctor we brushed back Mrs. Benoise's hair and put some make-up on her face, and for a final touch I got out my black lace negligee and slit it up the back so we could put it on her without having to move her around. And I'm not exaggerating when I say that when the dying woman saw herself in a mirror she looked happy for the first time in weeks. pital last month, BW Roso my sister stuffed everything that looked like bed-apparel into a valise and brought it around to my room, and sure enough, on top was the negligee. And sure enough again, it went right back Into a bureau, this time a white one. RECENTLY, HOWEVER, I finally fi-nally got to use the negligee, and the way It happened was like this. A few doors down the corridor from me there was a Mrs. Benoise who was suffering from a disease with a long Latin name that I can't even remember, but what It amounted to was a creeping paralysis par-alysis which had started at her toes, worked its way up to hex abdomen ab-domen and was steadily moving to- |