In these quiet labours and harmless cares the gentle widow's life was passing away, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time on her head and a line deepening ever so little on her fair forehead. She used to smile at these marks of time. "What matters it," she asked, "For an old woman like me?" All she hoped for was to live to see her son great, famous, and glorious, as he deserved to be. She kept his copy-books, his drawings, and compositions, and showed them about in her little circle as if they were miracles of genius. She confided some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show them to Miss Osborne, George's aunt, to show them to Mr. Osborne himself--to make that old man repent of his cruelty and ill feeling towards him who was gone. All her husband's faults and foibles she had buried in the grave with him: she only remembered the lover, who had married her at all sacrifices, the noble husband, so brave and beautiful, in whose arms she had hung on the morning when he had gone away to fight, and die gloriously for his king. From heaven the hero must be smiling down upon that paragon of a boy whom he had left to comfort and console her. We have seen how one of George's grandfathers (Mr. Osborne), in his easy chair in Russell Square, daily grew more violent and moody, and how his daughter, with her fine carriage, and her fine horses, and her name on half the public charity-lists of the town, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted old maid. She thought again and again of the beautiful little boy, her brother's son, whom she had seen. 
In these quiet labours the gentle widow's life was passing, a silver hair or two marking the progress of time and a line on her forehead deepening a little. All she hoped for was to see her son as great and glorious as he deserved.
She kept his copy-books and drawings and showed them to her little circle as if they were miracles of genius. She gave some of these specimens to Miss Dobbin, to show to Miss Osborne, George's aunt, who might show them to Mr. Osborne himself - to make that old man repent of his cruelty towards him who was gone. All her husband's faults she had buried in the grave with him: she only remembered the noble husband, so brave and beautiful, who had died gloriously.
We have seen how old Mr. Osborne daily grew more violent and moody, and how his daughter, with her fine carriage, was a lonely, miserable, persecuted old maid. She thought often of the beautiful little