"In a western billabong, with a stretch of plain around, a dirty waterhole beside me, I sat and read the WORKER. Maxwellton Station was handy; and sick with a fever on me I crawled off my horse to the shed on a Sunday. They invited me to supper; I was too ill. One gave me medicine, another the WORKER, the cook gave me milk and soup. If this is Unionism, God bless it! This is the moleskin charity, not the squatter's dole. The manager gave me quinine, and this is a Union station. I read 'Nellie's Sister' (from THE WORKINGMAN'S PARADISE) in you last. A woman's tenderness pervades it. Its fiction is truth. Although my feelings are blunted by a bush life, I dropped a tear on that page of the WORKER." --FROM A LETTER. PART I. THE WOMAN TEMPTED HIM. * * * * * Ah thy people, thy children, thy chosen, Marked cross from the womb and perverse! They have found out the secret to cozen The gods that constrain us and curse; They alone, they are wise, and none other; Give me place, even me, in their train, O my sister, my spouse, and my mother, Our Lady of Pain.--SWINBURNE. THE WORKINGMAN'S PARADISE CHAPTER I. WHY NELLIE SHOWS NED ROUND. Nellie was waiting for Ned, not in the best of humours. "I suppose he'll get drunk to celebrate it," she was saying, energetically drying the last cup with a corner of the damp cloth. "And I suppose she feels as though it's something to be very glad and proud about." "Well, Nellie," answered the woman who had been rinsing the breakfast things, ignoring the first supposition. "One doesn't want them to come, but when they do come one can't help feeling glad." "Glad!" said Nellie, scornfully. "If Joe was in steady work, I wouldn't mind how often it was. It's when he loses his job and work so hard to get--" Here the speaker subsided in tears. "It's no use worrying," comforted Nellie, kindly. "He'll get another job soon, I hope. He generally has pretty fair luck, you know." "Yes, Joe has had pretty fair luck, so far. But nobody knows how long it'll last. There's my brother wasn't out of work for fifteen years, and now he hasn't done a stroke for twenty-three weeks come Tuesday. He's going out of his mind." "He'll get used to it," answered Nellie, grimly. "How you do talk, Nellie!" said the other. "To hear you sometimes one would think you hadn't any heart." "I haven't any patience." "That's true, my young gamecock!" exclaimed a somewhat discordant voice. Nellie looked round, brightening suddenly.