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 chief cares and triumphs of Madam Liberality's childhood.
It was with the next birthday or the approaching Christmas in view
that she saved her pence instead of spending them, but she so
seldom had any money that she chiefly relied on her own ingenuity.
Year by year it became more difficult to make anything which would
"do for a boy;" but it was easy to please Darling, and "Mother's"
unabated appreciation of pin-cushions, and of needle-books made out
of old cards, was most satisfactory.

Equally characteristic of Julie's moral courage and unselfishness is
the incident of how Madam Liberality suffered the doctor's assistant
to extract the tooth fang which had been accidentally left in her jaw,
because her mother's "fixed scale of reward was sixpence for a tooth
without fangs, and a shilling for one with them," and she wanted the
larger sum to spend on Christmas-tree presents.

When the operation was over,

Madam Liberality staggered home, very giddy, but very happy.
Moralists say a great deal about pain treading so closely on the
heels of pleasure in this life, but they are not always wise or
grateful enough to speak of the pleasure which springs out of pain.
And yet there is a bliss which comes just when pain has ceased,
whose rapture rivals even the high happiness of unbroken health;
and there is a keen pleasure about small pleasures hardly earned,
in which the full measure of those who can afford anything they
want is sometimes lacking. Relief is certainly one of the most
delicious sensations which poor humanity can enjoy!

The details which can be traced in Julie's letters after undergoing
the removal of her tonsils read very much like extracts from Madam
Liberality's biography. During my sister's