t she had no money to pay for them.

Here was another occasion for painful truthtelling! But to make
humiliating confession before the butler seemed almost beyond even
Madam Liberality's moral courage. He went back to his pantry, however,
and she pulled off her pretty pink neckerchief and said,

"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