for poor George's sake?"

Osborne broke into a rhapsody of self praise and imprecations. No father
in all England could have behaved more generously to a son who had
rebelled against him, and had died without even confessing he was wrong.
As for himself, he had sworn never to speak to that woman, or to
recognise her as his son's wife. "And that's what I will stick to till
the last day of my life," he concluded, with an oath.

There was no hope from that quarter then. The widow must live on her
slender pittance, or on such aid as Joseph could give her.

For six years Amelia did live on this pittance in shabby genteel poverty
with her boy and her parents in Fulham. Dobbin and Joseph Sedley were in
India now, and old Sedley, always speculating in bootless schemes, once
more brought ruin on his family.

Mr. Osborne had seen his grandson, and had formally offered to take the
boy and make him heir to the fortune intended for his father. He would
make Mrs. George Osborne an allowance, such as to assure her a decent
competency. But it must be understood that the child would live entirely
with his grandfather in Russell Square, and that he would be
occasionally permitted to see Mrs. George Osborne at her own residence.

At first Amelia rejected the offer with indignation. It was only on the
knowledge that her father, in his speculations, had made away with the
annuity from Joseph that poverty and misery made her capitulate. Her
own, pittance would barely enable her to support her parents, and would
not suffice for her son.