very unceremoniously.

'We must try and get you apprenticed at some boarding-school,' said
Ralph. 'You have not been brought up too delicately for that, I hope?'

'No, indeed, uncle,' replied the weeping girl. 'I will try to do
anything that will gain me a home and bread.'

'Well, well,' said Ralph, a little softened, either by his niece's
beauty or her distress (stretch a point, and say the latter). 'You must
try it, and if the life is too hard, perhaps dressmaking or tambour-work
will come lighter. Have YOU ever done anything, sir?' (turning to his
nephew.)

'No,' replied Nicholas, bluntly.

'No, I thought not!' said Ralph. 'This is the way my brother brought up
his children, ma'am.'

'Nicholas has not long completed such education as his poor father could
give him,' rejoined Mrs Nickleby, 'and he was thinking of--'

'Of making something of him someday,' said Ralph. 'The old story; always
thinking, and never doing. If my brother had been a man of activity
and prudence, he might have left you a rich woman, ma'am: and if he had
turned his son into the world, as my father turned me, when I wasn't as
old as that boy by a year and a half, he would have been in a situation
to help you, instead of being a burden upon you, and increasing your
distress. My brother was a thoughtless, inconsiderate man, Mrs Nickleby,
and nobody, I am sure, can have better reason to feel that, than you.'