aded ribbons and her relations, but the butler, the housekeeper, and
the lady's-maid did their best to keep up the credit of the family.

It was well known that Madam Liberality was a cousin, and Podmore
resolved that she should have a proper frock to go down to dessert in.

So she had been very busy making a little slip out of a few yards of
blue silk which had been over and above one of the old lady's dresses,
and now she betook herself to the draper's to get spotted muslin to
cover it and ribbons to trim it with.

And whilst Madam Liberality's godmother was still feeling a few
twinges about the Indian scarf, Podmore ordered a pink neckerchief
shot with white, and with pink and white fringes, to be included in
the parcel.

But it was not in this way alone that Podmore was a good friend to
Madam Liberality.

She took her out walking, and let her play on the beach, and even
bring home dirty weeds and shells. Indeed, Podmore herself was not
above collecting cowries in a pill-box for her little nephews.

When Mrs. Podmore met acquaintances on the beach, Madam Liberality
played alone, and these were her happiest moments. She played amongst
the rotting, weed-grown stakes of an old pier, and "fancied" rooms
among them--suites of rooms in which she would lodge her brothers and
sister if they came to visit her, and where--with cockle-shells for
teacups, and lava for vegetables, and fucus-pods for fish--they
should find themselves as much enchanted as Beauty in the palace of
the Beast.

Again and again she "fancied" Darling into her shore-palace, the
delights of which should only be marred by the growls which she
herself would utter from time to time from behind the stakes, in the
character of a sea-beast, and which should but enhance the moment
when she would rush out and throw her arms round Darling's neck and
reveal herself as Madam Liberality.

"Darling" was the pet name of Madam Liberality's sister--her only
sister, on whom she lavished the intensest affection of a heart which
was always a large one in proportion to her little body. It seemed so
strange to play at any game of fancies without Darling, that Madam
Liberality could hardly realize it.

She might be preparing by herself a larger treat than usual for the
others; but it was incredible that no one would come after all, and
that Darling would never see the palace on the beach, and the
state-rooms, and the limpets, and the seaweed, and the salt-water
soup