Servants were a failure, for she made a friend of them, and their families lived in luxury at her expense.

And when Ada was left alone, the meals were never ready, the house was like a pigsty, and she sat complacently amidst the dirt, reading penny novelettes in a gaudy dressing-jacket, or entertaining her old pals from the factory.
These would sit through an afternoon with envy in their hearts, and cries of wonder on their lips at the sight of some useless and costly article, which Ada, with the instinct of the parvenu, had bought to dazzle their eyes.

For she remained on the level where she was born, and the gaping admiration of her poorer friends was the only profit she drew from Jonah's success.

If Jonah arrived without warning, they tumbled over one another to get out unseen by the back door, but never forgot to carry away some memento of their visit--a tin of salmon, a canister of tea, a piece of bacon, a bottle whose label puzzled them--for Ada bestowed gifts like Royalty, with the invariable formula "Oh! take it; there's plenty more where that comes from." But the worst was her neglect of Ray, now seven years old, and the apple of Jonah's eye.

She certainly spent part of the morning in dressing him up in his clothes, which were always new, for they were discarded by Jonah when the creases wore off; but when this duty, which she was afraid to neglect, was ended, she sent him out into the street to play in the gutter.