The Workingmans Paradise | Page 8

is," commented a third.
"Well, she's a big lump of a girl, too," contributed a fourth.
"Yes, and a vixen with her tongue when she gets started, for all her
prim looks," added a fifth.
"She has tricky ways that get over the men-folks. Mine won't hear a
word against her." This from the third speaker, eager to be with the tide,
evidently setting towards unfavorable criticism.
"I don't know," objected the second, timidly. "She sat up all night with
my Maggie once, when she had the fever, and Nellie had to work next
day, too."
"Oh, she's got her good side," retorted the fifth, opening her dress to
feed her nursing baby with absolute indifference for all onlookers. "But
she knows a great deal too much for a girl of her age. When she gets
married will be time enough to talk as she does sometimes." The chorus
of approving murmurs showed that Nellie had spoken plainly enough
on some subjects to displease some of these slatternly matrons.
"She stays out till all hours, I'm told," one slanderer said.
"She's a union girl, at any rate," hazarded Nellie's timid defender. There
was an awkward pause at this. It was an apple of discord with the
women, evidently. A tall form turning the corner afforded further
reason for changing the subject.
"Here's Mrs. Macanany," announced one. "You'd better not say
anything against Nellie Lawton when she's about." So they talked again
of Mrs. Hobbs' baby, making it the excuse to leave undone for a few
minutes the endless work of the poor man's wife.

And sad to tell when, a few minutes afterwards, Ned and Nellie came
out again and walked off together, the group of gossipers unanimously
endorsed Mrs. Macanany's extravagant praises, and agreed entirely
with her declaration that if all the women in Sydney would only stand
by Nellie, as Mrs. Macanany herself would, there would be such a
doing and such an upsetting and such a righting of things that ever after
every man would be his own master and every woman would only
work eight hours and get well paid for it. Yet it was something that of
six women there were two who wouldn't slander a girl like Nellie
behind her back.
CHAPTER II.
SWEATING IN THE SYDNEY SLUMS.
"Well! Where shall we go, Nellie?" began Ned jauntily, as they walked
away together. To tell the truth he was eager to get away from this poor
neighborhood. It had saddened him, made him feel unhappy, caused in
him a longing to be back again in the bush, on his horse, a hundred
miles from everybody. "Shall we go to Manly or Bondi or Watson's
Bay, or do you know of a better place?" He had been reading the
newspaper advertisements and had made enquiries of the waitress, as
he ate his breakfast, concerning the spot which the waitress would
prefer were a young man going to take her out for the day. He felt
pleased with himself now, for not only did he like Nellie very much but
she was attractive to behold, and he felt very certain that every man
they passed envied him. She had put on a little round straw hat, black,
trimmed with dark purple velvet; in her hands, enclosed in black gloves,
she carried a parasol of the same colour.
"Where would you like to go, Ned?" she answered, colouring a little as
she heard her name in Mrs. Macanany's hoarse voice, being told
thereby that she and Ned were the topic of conversation among the jury
of matrons assembled opposite.
"Anywhere you like, Nellie."
"Don't you think, Ned, that you might see a little bit of real Sydney?

Strangers come here for a few days and go on the steamers and through
the gardens and along George-street and then go away with a notion of
the place that isn't the true one. If I were you, Ned, right from the bush
and knowing nothing of towns, I'd like to see a bit of the real side and
not only the show side that everybody sees. We don't all go picnicking
all the time and we don't all live by the harbour or alongside the
Domain."
"Do just whatever you like, Nellie," cried Ned, hardly understanding
but perfectly satisfied, "you know best where to take a fellow."
"But they're not pleasant places, Ned."
"I don't mind," answered Ned, lightly, though he had been looking
forward, rather, to the quiet enjoyment of a trip on a harbour steamer,
or at least to the delight of a long ramble along some beach where he
thought he and Nellie might pick up shells. "Besides, I fancy it's going
to rain before night," he added, looking up at the sky, of which a long
narrow slice