The String of Pearls (1850), p. 511

"Oh, you have made that discovery, have you?"
"I have, indeed, Ben."
"Well, I knowed as much as that when I was a small baby. It only shows how backward some folks is in coming forward with their edication."
"Yes, Ben."
"Well, and what is you going to be arter now?"
"I wish to go home, and I want you to come with me, and to say a kind word for me; I want you to tell them how I now see the error of my ways, and how I am an altered woman, and mean to be a very—very different person than I was."
Here Mrs. Oakley's genuine feelings got the better of her, and she began to weep bitterly; and Ben, after looking at her for a few moments, cried out—
"Why, it's real, and not like our hyena that only does it to gammon us! Come, mother Oakley, just pop your front paw under my arm, and I'll go home with you; and if you don't get a welcome there, I'm not a beef-eater. Why, the old man will fly right bang out of his wits for joy. You should only see what a house is when the mother and the wife don't do as she ought. Mother O., you should see what a bit of fire there is in the grate, and what a hearth."
"I know it—I ought to know it."
"You ought to know it!" added Ben, putting himself into an oratorial attitude. You should only see the old man when dinner time comes round. He goes into the parlour and he finds no fire; then he says—"Dear me!"
"Yes—yes."
"Then he gives a boy a ha'penny to go and get him something that don't do him no sort of good from the cook's shop, and sometimes the boy nabs the ha'penny and the shilling both, and ain't never heard of again by any means no more."
"No doubt, Ben."
"Then, when tea comes round, it don't come round at all, and the old man has none; but he takes in a ha'porth of milk in a jug without a spout, and he drinks that up, cold and miserable, with a penny-loaf, you see."
"Yes—yes."
"And then at night, when there ought to be a little sort of comfort round the fireside, there ain't none."
"But Johanna, Ben—there is Johanna?"
"Johanna?"
"Yes. Is she not there to see to some of her father's comforts? She loves him—I know she does, Ben!"
Ben placed his finger by the side of his nose, and in an aside to himself, he said—
"Now I'll touch her up a bit—now I'll punish her for all she has done, and it will serve her right."
Then, elevating his voice, he added—"Did you mention Johanna?"
"Yes, Ben, I did."
"Then I'm sorry you did. Perhaps you think she's been seeing to the old man's comforts a little—airing his night-cap, and so on—Eh? Is that the idea?"
"Yes, I know that she would do anything gladly for her father. She was always most tenderly attached to him."
"Humph!"
"Why do you say, Humph, Ben?"
"Just answer me one question, Mrs. O. Did you ever hear of a young girl as was neglected by her mother—her mother who of all ought to be the person to attend to her—turning out well?"
"Do not terrify me, Ben."
"Well, all I have got to say is, that Johanna can't be in two places at once,