t the result--she had inherited fifteen
thousand a year.

The first rational idea which came to her was that there was no
difficulty now about getting the curtains; and the second was that
their chief merit was a merit no more. What is the good of a thing
being cheap when one has fifteen thousand a year?

Madam Liberality poked the fire extravagantly, and sat down to think.

The curtains naturally led her to household questions, and those to
that invaluable person, Jemima. That Jemima's wages should be doubled,
trebled, quadrupled, was a thing of course. What post she was to fill
in the new circumstances was another matter. Remembering Podmore, and
recalling the fatigue of dressing herself after her pretty numerous
illnesses. Madam Liberality felt that a lady's-maid would be a comfort
to be most thankful for. But she could not fancy Jemima in that
capacity, or as a housekeeper, or even as head housemaid or cook. She
had lived for years with Jemima herself, but she could not fit her
into a suitable place in the servants' hall.

However, with fifteen thousand a year, Madam Liberality could buy, if
needful, a field, and build a house, and put Jemima into it with a
servant to wait upon her. The really important question was about her
new domestics. Sixteen servants are a heavy responsibility.

Madam Liberality had very high ideas of the parental duties involved in
being the head of a household. She had suffered--more than Jemima--over
Jemima's lack of scruple as to telling lies for good purposes. Now a
footman is a young man who has, no doubt, his own peculiar temptations.
What check could Madam Liberality keep upon him? Possibly she might--under
the strong pressure of moral responsibility--give good general advice to
the footman; but the idea of the butler troubled her.

When one has lived alone in a little house for many years one gets
timid. She put a case to herself. Say that she knew the butler to be
in the habit of stealing the wine, and suspected the gardener of
making a good income by the best of the wall fruit, would she have the
moral courage to be as firm with these important personages as if she
had caught one of the school-children picking and stealing in the
orchard? And if not, would not family prayers be a mockery?

Madam Liberality sighed. Poor dear Tom! He had had his faults
certainly; but how well he would have managed a butler!

This touched the weak point of her good fortune to the core. It had