How he was doing, or whether he was there still, she did not seem to know, never having heard a word from him for years and years past.
As for her step-mother, Mary not unnaturally flew into a passion the moment I spoke of her.

She keeps an eating-house at Hammersmith, and could have given Mary good employment in it; but she seems always to have hated her, and to have made her life so wretched with abuse and ill usage that she had no refuge left but to go away from home, and do her best to make a living for herself.

Her husband (Mary's father) appears to have behaved badly to her, and, after his death, she took the wicked course of revenging herself on her step-daughter.

I felt, after this, that it was impossible Mary could go back, and that it was the hard necessity of her position, as it is of mine, that she should struggle on to make a decent livelihood without assistance from any of her relations.

I confessed as much as this to her; but I added that I would try to get her employment with the persons for whom I work, who pay higher wages, and show a little more indulgence to those under them than the people to whom she is now obliged to look for support.
I spoke much more confidently than I felt about being able to do this, and left her, as I thought, in better spirits than usual.