Aunt Harriet's advice might not always be palatable, but it was combined with such practical help that there seemed no alternative but to follow it.
Miss Beach, though not a rich woman, was possessed of very comfortable private means.

She lived in an old-fashioned house just opposite the Abbey, and her windows looked out on a view of towers and cloisters and tall lime trees, with a foreground of monuments.

To some people the array of tombstones would have proved a dismal prospect, but she declared it never distressed her in the least.

She prided herself greatly on the fact that she had been born in the house where her father, grandfather and great-grandfather had also come into the world and spent their lives.

Except for an occasional expedition to Highfield, she rarely left home.