"Is he still carrying on?" enquired Nellie, nodding her head at the
partition and evidently alluding to someone on the other side.

"Of course, drink, drink, drink, whenever he gets a chance, and that
seems pretty well always. She helps him sometimes, and sometimes she
keeps sober and abuses him. He kicked her down stairs the other night,
and the children all screaming, and her shrieking, and him swearing. It
was a nice time."

Once more the machining interrupted the conversation, which thus was
renewed from time to time in the pauses of the noise. The room being
"tidied," Mrs. Somerville sat down on the bed and taking up some pieces
of cloth began to tack them together with needle and thread, ready for
the machine. It never seemed to occur to her to rest even for a moment.

"Nellie's a quick one," she remarked to Ned. "At the shop they always
tell those who grumble what she earned one week. Twenty-four and six,
wasn't it, Nellie? But they don't say she worked eighteen hours a day for
it."

Nellie flushed uneasily and Ned felt uncomfortable. Both thought of the
repayment of the latter's friendly loan. The girl made her machine rattle
still more hurriedly to prevent any further remarks trending in that
direction. At last Mrs. Somerville, her tacking finished, got up and took
the work from Nellie's hands.

"I'm not going to take your whole morning," she said. "You don't get many
friends from the bush to see you, so just go away and I'll get on. I'm
much obliged to you as it is, Nellie."