Always poverty--or they would not be there.

Always ignorance, or they would not stay there.

Then either incompetence in the work, or inability to hold their little earnings--or both; and further the Tale of the Other Side--the exactions and restrictions of the untrained mistresses they served; cases of withheld wages; cases of endless requirements; cases of most arbitrary interference with their receiving friends and "followers," or going out; and cases, common enough to be horrible, of insult they could only escape by leaving.
"It's no wages, of course--and no recommendation, when you leave like that--but what else can a girl do, if she's honest ?" So Diantha learned, made friends and laid broad foundations.
The excellence of her cocking was known to many, thanks to the weekly "entertainments." No one refused.

No one regretted acceptance.

Never had Mrs.Porne enjoyed such a sense of social importance.
All the people she ever knew called on her afresh, and people she never knew called on her even more freshly.