deliciously, though it came out of the ewer in the night-nursery,
and had not even been filtered. And before every doll was a flat
oyster-shell covered with a round oyster-shell, a complete set of
complete pairs which had been collected by degrees, like old family
plate. And, when the upper shell was raised, on every dish lay a
plum. It was then that Madam Liberality got her sweetness out of
the cake. She was in her glory at the head of the inverted
tea-chest, and if the raisins would not go round the empty
oyster-shell was hers, and nothing offended her more than to have
this noticed. That was her spirit, then and always. She could "do
without" anything, if the wherewithal to be hospitable was left to
her.

When one's brain is no stronger than mine is, one gets very much
confused in disentangling motives and nice points of character. I
have doubted whether Madam Liberality's besetting virtue were a
virtue at all. Was it unselfishness or love of approbation,
benevolence or fussiness, the gift of sympathy or the lust of
power, or was it something else? She was a very sickly child, with
much pain to bear, and many pleasures to forego. Was it, as the
doctors say, "an effort of nature" to make her live outside
herself, and be happy in the happiness of others?

All my earliest recollections of Julie (as I must call her) picture
her as at once the projector and manager of all our nursery doings.
Even if she tyrannized over us by always arranging things according to
her own fancy, we did not rebel, we relied so habitually and entirely
on her to originate every fresh plan and idea; and I am sure that in
our turn we often tyrannized over her by reproaching her when any of
what we called her "projukes" ended in "mulls," or when she paused for