is letter she learned that her
cousin's will had been found, and that (as seems to be natural) he had
left his money where it would be associated with more money and kept
well together. His heir was a cousin also, but in the next degree--an
old bachelor, who was already wealthy; and he had left Madam
Liberality five pounds to buy a mourning ring.

It had been said that Madam Liberality was used to disappointment, but
some minutes passed before she quite realized the downfall of her
latest visions. Then the old sofa-cushions resumed their importance,
and she flattened the fire into a more economical shape, and set
vigorously to work to decorate the house with the Christmas
evergreens. She had just finished and gone up-stairs to wash her hands
when the church clock struck three.

It was an old house, and the window of the bedroom went down to the
floor, and had a deep window-seat. Madam Liberality sat down in it and
looked out. She expected some linsey-woolsey by the carrier, to make
Christmas petticoats, and she was glad to see the hooded waggon
ploughing its way through the snow. The goose-pond was firmly frozen,
and everything looked as it had looked years ago, except that the
carrier's young son went before the waggon and a young dog went before
him. They passed slowly out of sight, but Madam Liberality sat on. She
gazed dreamily at the old church, and the trees, and the pond, and
thought of the past; of her mother, and of poor Tom, and of Darling,
and she thought till she fancied that she heard Darling's voice in the
passage below. She got up to go down to Jemima, but as she did so she
heard a footstep on the stairs, and it was not Jemima's tread. It was
too light for the step of any man or woman.

Then the door opened, and on the threshold of Madam Liberality's room
stood a little boy dressed in black, with his little hat pushed back
from the loveliest of baby faces set in long flaxen hair. The
carnation colour of his cheeks was deepened by the frost, and his
bright eyes were brighter from mingled daring and doubt and curiosity,
as he looked leisurely round the room and said in a slow,
high-pitched, and very distinct tone,

"Where are you, Aunt Liberality?"

But, lovely as he was, Madam Liberality ran past him, for another
figure was in the doorway now, also in black, and, with a widow's cap;
and Madam Liberality and Darling fell sobbing into each other's arms.

"This is better than fifteen thousand a year,"