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.