*cough*cough*

Courtesy of boredom and McSweeney's:

Reasons
You Might Die
of Consumption
in a 19th-Century
Novel, in Order From
Least Likely to
Most Likely.
BY ARIELLE ZIBRAK

- - - -

You fell in love with someone who is richer than you are.

You got lost in the moors in the rain.

You work in a mill.

You are a prostitute.

You are an orphan.

Your sister works in a mill.

Your sister is a prostitute.

Your sister is a more orphany orphan than you are.

You took in an orphan who is also a prostitute.

Your sister took in an orphan who is also a prostitute and made her work in a mill instead.

You are a woman who fell in love with a man who is poorer than you are and you may or may not have slept with him, but then you had to become a prostitute to support yourself because he already died of consumption from working in a mill.

You are the previously unmentioned very wealthy older relative of an orphan who is in love with someone much richer than he or she is.

*I didn't come up with this, it's from the McSweeney's website. But on a personal note, I've always thought that in the end, it will be the consumption that gets me. I'm just a romantic like that, I guess.