ing and didn't
want to give up my things without but aunt went and got them and gave me
the money for my fare and told me if I wanted to come back to write to
her and she'd find the money again. Poor old aunt! I shall never forget
her. Her heart was all right if she had got hard and unhappy. That's how
I got to Brisbane to look for Mary.

"I went to board with the girl I knew. I was earning ten shillings a week
and paid that for my board and helped with the ironing for my washing.
Her father had got out of work again for times were bad and they were
glad to get my money. Lizzie got ten shillings a week and she had a
brother about fourteen who earned five shillings. That was about all they
had to live on often, nine in the family with me and the rent seven
shillings for a shell of a place that was standing close up against other
humpies in a sort of yard. There were four little rooms unceiled and
Lizzie and I slept together in a sort of shelf bedstead, with two little
sisters sleeping on the floor beside us. When it was cold we used to take
them in with us and heap their bedclothes on top of us. The wind came
through the walls everywhere. Out in the bush one doesn't mind that but
in town, where you're cooped up all day, it doesn't seem the same thing.
We had plenty of bread and meat and tea generally but the children didn't
seem to thrive and got so thin and pale-looking that I thought they were
going to be ill. Lizzie's father used to come home, after tramping about
for work, looking as tired as my father did after his long day in the
fields and her mother fretted and worried and you could see things
getting shabbier and shabbier every week. I don't know what I should have
done only Lizzie and I now and then got a dress to make for a neighbour
or some sewing to do, night-times. Lizzie's mother had a machine and we
used that and they always made me keep my half of what we got that way,
no matter how hard up they were. They never thought of asking for
interest for the use of the machine. And all the while I was looking for
Mary.

"I used to stand watching as the troops of girls went by to work and from
work, morning and evening, going to a new place every day so that I
shouldn't miss her and in the dinner hours I used to go round the work
rooms to see if she worked in one of them or if anybody knew her. At
first, when I had a shilling to spare, I put an advertisement that she
would understand in the paper, but I gave tha