Bessie answered not; but ere long, addressing me, she said, –
“You ought to be aware, Miss, that you are under obligations to Mrs. Reed: she keeps you: if she were to turn you off, you would have to go to the poor-house.”
I had nothing to say to these words: they were not new to me: my very first recollections of existence included hints of the same kind. This reproach of my dependence had become a vague sing-song in my ear; very painful and crushing, but only half intelligible.
– Charlotte Bronte
Jane Eyre, Chapter 2. In her early life with the upper class Reed family, Jane gets a hard time even from the servants. She is constantly reminded of her inferiority to the Reeds and how poor and dependant she is on Mrs. Reed. Here Gateshead maid Bessie talks down to her, not letting her forget that Mrs. Reed could cut her off at any time and consign her the poorhouse.