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Happiness is sometimes very wholesome, but it does not cure a quinsy off hand. Darling cried that night when the big pillow was brought out, which Madam Liberality always slept against in her quinsies, to keep her from choking. She did not know of that consolatory Christmas-box in the cupboard.

On Christmas Day Madam Liberality was speechless. The quinsy had progressed very rapidly.

“It generally breaks the day I have to write on my slate,” Madam Liberality wrote, looking up at her mother with piteous eyes.

She was conscious that she had been greatly to blame for what she was suffering, and was anxious to “behave well about it” as an atonement. She begged–on her slate–that no one would stay away from church on her account, but her mother would not leave her.

“And now the others are gone,” said Mother, “since you won’t let the Christmas-tree be put off, I propose that we have it up, and I dress it under your orders, whilst the others are out, and then it can be moved into the little book-room, all ready for to-night.”

Madam Liberality nodded like a china Mandarin.

“But you are in sad pain, I fear?” said her mother,

“One can’t have everything,” wrote Madam Liberality on her slate. Many illnesses had made her a very philosophical little woman; and, indeed, if the quinsy broke and she were at ease, the combination of good things would be more than any one could reasonably expect, even at Christmas.

Every beast was labelled, and hung up by her orders. The box of furniture was addressed to herself and Darling, as a joint possession, and the sweetmeats were tied in bags of muslin. The tree looked charming. The very angel at the top seemed proud of it.

“I’ll leave the tea-things up-stairs,” said Mother.

But Madam Liberality shook her head vigorously. She had been making up her mind, as she sat steaming over the old teapot; and now she wrote on her slate, “Put a white cloth round the tub, and put out the tea-things like a tea-party, and put a ticket in the slop-basin–For Darling. With very, VERY Best Love. Make the last ‘very’ very big.”

Madam Liberality’s mother nodded, but she was printing a ticket; much too large a ticket, however, to go into the green and white slop-basin. When it was done she hung it on the tree, under the angel. The inscription was–From Madam Liberality.

When supper was over, she came up to Madam Liberality’s room, and said,

“Now, my dear, if you like to change your mind and put off the tree till you are better, I will say nothing about it.”

But Madam Liberality shook her head more vehemently than before, and her mother smiled and went away.

Madam Liberality strained her ears. The book-room door opened–she knew the voice of the handle–there was a rush and a noise, but it died away into the room. The tears broke down Madam Liberality’s cheeks. It was hard not to be there now. Then there was a patter up the stairs, and flying steps along the landing, and Madam Liberality’s door was opened by Darling. She was dressed in the pink dress, and her cheeks were pinker still, and her eyes full of tears. And she threw herself at Madam Liberality’s feet, crying,

“Oh how good, how very good you are!”

At this moment a roar came up from below, and Madam Liberality wrote,

“What is it?” and then dropped the slate to clutch the arms of her chair, for the pain was becoming almost intolerable. Before Darling could open the door her mother came in, and Darling repeated the question,

“What is it?”

But at this moment the reply came from below, in Tom’s loudest tones. It rang through the house, and up into the bedroom.

“Three cheers for Madam Liberality! Hip, hip, hooray!”

The extremes of pleasure and of pain seemed to meet in Madam Liberality’s little head. But overwhelming gratification got the upper hand, and, forgetting even her quinsy, she tried to speak, and after a brief struggle she said, with tolerable distinctness,