“I am very sorry, little girl, but I’ve got no money of my own; but if you would like this instead—­” And the little girl seemed quite pleased with her bargain, and ran hastily off, as if afraid that the young lady would change her mind.

And this was how Madam Liberality got her scallop-shells.

* * * * *

It may seem strange that Madam Liberality should ever have been accused of meanness, and yet her eldest brother did once shake his head at her and say, “You’re the most meanest and the generoustest person I ever knew!” And Madam Liberality wept over the accusation, although her brother was then too young to form either his words or his opinions correctly.

But it was the touch of truth in it which made Madam Liberality cry.  To the end of their lives Tom and she were alike and yet different in this matter.  Madam Liberality saved, and pinched, and planned, and then gave away, and Tom gave away without the pinching and saving.  This sounds much handsomer, and it was poor Tom’s misfortune that he always believed it to be so; though he gave away what did not belong to him, and fell back for the supply of his own pretty numerous wants upon other people, not forgetting Madam Liberality.

Painful experience convinced Madam Liberality in the end that his way was a wrong one, but she had her doubts many times in her life whether there were not something unhandsome in her own decided talent for economy.  Not that economy was always pleasant to her.  When people are very poor for their position in life, they can only keep out of debt by stinting on many occasions when stinting is very painful to a liberal spirit.  And it requires a sterner virtue than good-nature to hold fast the truth that it is nobler to be shabby and honest than to do things handsomely in debt.

But long before Tom had a bill even for bull’s-eyes and Gibraltar Rock, Madam Liberality was pinching and plotting, and saving bits of coloured paper and ends of ribbon, with a thriftiness which seemed to justify Tom’s view of her character.

The object of these savings was twofold:  birthday presents and Christmas-boxes.  They were the chief cares and triumphs of Madam Liberality’s childhood.  It was with the next birthday or the approaching Christmas in view that she saved her pence instead of spending them, but she so seldom had any money that she chiefly relied on her own ingenuity.  Year by year it became more difficult to make anything which would “do for a boy;” but it was easy to please Darling, and “Mother’s” unabated appreciation of pincushions, and of needle-books made out of old cards, was most satisfactory.