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“It’s very odd, Darling, and I’m sure at my time of life it’s disgraceful, but I cannot feel old!”

We could hardly take leave of Madam Liberality in pleasanter circumstances. Why should we ask whether, for the rest of her life, she was rich or poor, when we may feel so certain that she was contented? No doubt she had many another hope and disappointment to keep life from stagnating.

As a matter of fact she outlived the bachelor cousin, and if he died intestate she must have been rich after all. Perhaps she was. Perhaps she never suffered again from insufficient food or warmth. Perhaps the illnesses of her later years were alleviated by skill and comforts such as hitherto she had never known. Perhaps Darling and she enjoyed a sort of second spring in their old age, and went every year to the Continent, and grew wonderful flowers in the greenhouse, and sent Tom to Eton, and provided for their nephews and nieces, and built churches to their mother’s memory, and never had to withhold the liberal hand from helping because it was empty; and so passed by a time of wealth to the hour of death.

Or perhaps the cousin took good care to bequeath his money where there was more money for it to stick to. And Madam Liberality pinched out her little presents as heretofore, and kept herself warm with a hot bottle when she could not afford a fire, and was too thankful to have Darling with her when she was ill to want anything else. And perhaps Darling and she prepared Tom for school, and (like many another widow’s son) he did them credit. And perhaps they were quite happy with a few common pot-plants in the sunny window, and kept their mother’s memory green by flowers about her grave, and so passed by a life of small cares and small pleasures to where

“Divided households re-unite.”

Of one thing we may be quite certain. Rich or poor, she was always

MADAM LIBERALITY.