“Thank Heaven upon your knees, dear lady,” cried the girl, “that you had friends to care for and keep you in your childhood, and that you were never in the midst of cold and hunger, and riot and drunkenness, and–and–something worse than all–as I have been from my cradle. I may use the word, for the alley and the gutter were mine, as they will be my deathbed.” ~ Oliver Twist