de him stubborn, but I got her alone that night and talked to her and
explained things a bit and she talked to him and next day he joined the
union. Then he got working about as a labourer, and one day some rotten
scaffolding broke, and he came down with it. The union got a few pounds
for her, but the boss was a regular swindler who was always beating men
out of their wages and doing anything to get contracts and running
everything cheap, so there was nothing to be got out of him."

"Did her husband die?"

"Yes, next day. She had three children and another came seven months
after. One died last summer just before the baby was born. She's had a
pretty hard time of it, but she works all the time and she generally has
work."

"It seems quite a favour to get work here," observed Ned.

"If you were a girl you'd soon find out what a favour it is sometimes,"
answered Nellie quietly, as they came out into the street.

CHAPTER III.

SHORN LIKE SHEEP.

"How many hours do you work?" asked Nellie of the waitress.

"About thirteen," answered the girl, glancing round to see if the manager
was watching her talking. "But it's not the hours so much. It's the
standing."

"You're not doing any good standing now," put in Ned. "Why don't you sit
down and have a rest?"

"They don't let us," answered the waitress, cautiously.

"What do they pay?" asked Nellie, sipping her tea and joining in the
waitress' look-out for the manager.

"Fifteen! But they're taking girls on at twelve. Of course there's meals.
But you've got to room yourself, and then there's washing, clean aprons
and caps and cuffs and collars. You've got to dress, too. There's nothing
left. We ought to get a pound."

"What----"

"S-s-s!" warned the waitress, straightening herself up as the manager
appeared.

* * * * *

They were in a fashionable Sydney restaurant, on George-street, a large,
painted, gilded, veneered, electro-plated place, full of mirrors and
gas-fittings and white-clothed tables. It was not busy, the hour being
somewhat late and the day Saturday, and so against the walls, on either
side the long halls, were ranged sentinel rows of white-aproned,
white-capped, black-dressed waitresses.

They were dawdling over their tea--Ned and Nellie were, not the
waitresses--having dined exceedingly well on soup and fish and flesh
and pudding. For Ned, crushed by more sight-seeing and revived by a
stroll to the Domain and a rest by a fountain under s