ittle 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 s