washing. And the rich
folk she washed for kept her waiting for her money--more shame to 'em;
there was weeks run on, and she borrowed a bit, and pawned a bit, and
when she went the day they said they'd pay her, he'd been before and
drawed the money, and was drinking it up when she went to see if she
could get any, and then laughed at her, and sent her back to the
children as was starving, and the neighbour she'd borrowed of as
called her a thief and threatened to have her up. Gentle! why, bless
your innocence, who ever knowed gentleness do good to a drunkard? She
should have stood up to him sooner, and he'd never have got so bad.
She's kept his brute ways to herself and made his home comfortable
with her own earnings, till he thinks he may do anything and never
bring in nothing. She did lay out some of his behaviour before him
that day, and he beat her for it afterwards. But if it had been me,
Master Reginald, I'd have had money to feed them children, or I'd have
fought him while I'd a bit of breath in my body."

And with all my respect for Nurse Bundle, I am bound to say that I
think she would have been as good as her word.

"Go to your tutor, my dear," she continued, "and talk Latin and Greek
and such like, as you knows about; but don't talk rubbish about
pretty looks and ways for a woman as is tied to a drunkard, for I
can't abear it. I seed enough of husbands and public-houses in my
young days to keep me a single woman and my own missis. Not but what
I've had my feelings like other folk, and plenty of offers, besides a
young cabinet-maker as had high wages and the beautifullest complexion
you ever saw. But he was overfond of company; so I went to service,
and cried myself to sleep every night for three months; and when next
I see him he was staggering along the street, and I says, 'I'm sorry
to see you like this, William,' and he says, 'It's your doing, Mary;
your No's drove me to the glass.' And I says, 'Then it's best as it
is. If one No drove you to the glass, you and married life wouldn't
suit, for there's plenty of Noes there.' So I left him wiping his
eyes, for he always cried when he was in beer. And I says to myself,
'I'll go back to place, where I knows what I'm working for, and can
leave it if we don't suit.' And it was always the same, my dear. If it
was a nice-looking footman, he'd have his evening out and come home
fresh; and if it was an elderly butler as had put a little by, he
wanted to set up in t