entirely on her hands, her son Oliver made no offers of assistance.
He had risen, so as to be a prosperous merchant at Lima, and he wrote
with regularity and dutifulness, but he had never proposed coming to
England, and did not proffer any aid in the charge of his brother's
children. If she had expected anything from him, she did not say so;
she seldom spoke of him, but never without tenderness, and usually as
her 'poor Oliver,' and she abstained from teaching her grandchildren
either to look to their rich uncle or to mourn over their lost
inheritance. Cheveleigh was a winter evening's romance with no one
but Jane Beckett; and the grandmother always answered the children's
inquiries by bidding them prove their ancient blood by resolute
independence, and by that true dignity which wealth could neither
give nor take away.

Of that dignity, Mrs. Frost was a perfect model. A singular compound
of the gentle and the lofty, of tenderness and independence, she had
never ceased to be the Northwold standard of the 'real lady,' too
mild and gracious to be regarded as proud and poor, and yet too
dignified for any liberty to be attempted, her only fault, that touch
of pride, so ladylike and refined that it was kept out of sight, and
never offended, and everything else so sweet and winning that there
was scarcely a being who did not love, as well as honour her, for the
cheerfulness and resignation that had borne her through her many
trials. Her trustful spirit and warm heart had been an elixir of
youth, and had preserved her freshness and elasticity long after her
sister and brother-in-law at Ormersfield had grown aged and sunk into
the grave, and even her nephew was fast verging upon more than middle
age.