But this time it was otherwise; for whatever could be spared towards “summer things” for the two little girls was spent upon Madam Liberality’s outfit for the seaside.  There was a new dress, and a jacket “as good as new,” for it was cut out of “mother’s” cloth cloak and made up, with the best binding and buttons in the shop, by the village tailor.  And he was bribed, in a secret visit, and with much coaxing from the little girls, to make real pockets instead of braided shams.  The second best frock was compounded of two which had hitherto been very bests—­Madam Liberality’s own, eked out by “Darling’s” into a more fashionable fullness, and with a cape to match.

There was a sense of solid property to be derived from being able to take in at a glance the stock of well-mended under-garments, half of which were generally at the wash.  Besides, they had been added to, and all the stockings were darned, and only one pair in the legs where it would show, below short petticoat mark.

Then there was a bonnet newly turned and trimmed, and a pair and a half of new boots, for surely boots are at least half new when they have been (as the village cobbler described it in his bill) “souled and healed”?

Poor little Madam Liberality!  When she saw the things which covered her bed in their abundance, it seemed to her an outfit for a princess.  And yet when her godmother asked Podmore, the lady’s-maid, “How is the child off for clothes?” Podmore unhesitatingly replied, “She’ve nothing fit to be seen, ma’am,” which shows how differently the same things appear in different circumstances.

Podmore was a good friend to Madam Liberality.  She had that open-handed spirit which one acquires quite naturally in a house where everything goes on on a large scale, at somebody else’s expense.  Now Madam Liberality’s godmother, from the very largeness of her possessions, was obliged to leave the care of them to others, in such matters as food, dress, the gardens, the stables, etc.  So, like many other people in a similar case, she amused herself and exercised her economical instincts by troublesome little thriftinesses, by making cheap presents, dear bargains, and so forth.  She was by nature a managing woman; and when those very grand people, the butler, the housekeeper, the head-gardener, and the lady’s-maid had divided her household duties among them, there was nothing left for her to be clever about, except such little matters as joining the fag-ends of the bronze sealing-wax sticks which lay in the silver inkstand on the malachite writing-table, and being good-natured at the cheapest rate at which her friends could be benefited.

Madam Liberality’s best neckerchief had been very pretty when it was new, and would have been pretty as well as clean still if the washerwoman had not used rather too hot an iron to it, so that the blue in the check pattern was somewhat faded.  And yet it had felt very smart as Madam Liberality drove in the carrier’s cart to meet the coach at the outset of her journey.  But when she sat against the rich blue leather of her godmother’s coach as they drove up and down the esplanade, it was like looking at fairy jewels by daylight when they turn into faded leaves.