acted was at Shoeburyness, where she was the guest
of her friends Colonel and Mrs. Strangways, and when Captain
Goold-Adams and his wife also took part in the entertainment. The
terrible news of Colonel Strangways' and Captain Goold-Adams' deaths
from the explosion at Shoebury in February 1885, reached her whilst
she was very ill, and shocked her greatly; though she often alluded to
the help she got from thinking of Colonel Strangways' unselfishness,
courage, and submission during his last hours, and trying to bear her
own sufferings in the same spirit. She was so much pleased with the
description given of his grave being lined with moss and lilac
crocuses, that when her own had to be dug it was lined in a similar
way.

But now let us go back to her in the Nursery, and recall how, in spite of
very limited pocket-money, she was always the presiding Genius over
birthday and Christmas-tree gifts; and the true 'St. Nicholas' who filled
the stockings that the "little ones" tied, in happy confidence, to their
bed-posts. Here the description must be quoted of Madam Liberality's
struggles between generosity and conscientiousness;--

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 _generousest_
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 the 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