eir sharp
angles or their unnatural busts; the wizened children that served at the
stalls, precocious in infancy, with the wisdom of the Jew and the
impudence of the witless babe; the old crones that crawled along--the
mothers of a nation haggling for pennies as if they had haggled all their
lives long. They bore baskets, most of the girls and housewives and
crones; with some were husbands, who sometimes carried the basket but not
always; some even carried children in their arms, unable even for an hour
to escape the poor housewife's old-man-of-the-seas.

The men were absorbed, hidden away, in the flood of wearied women. There
were men, of course, in the crowd, among the stallkeepers--hundreds.
And when one noticed them they were wearied also, or sharp like ferrets;
oppressed, overborne, or cunning, with the cunning of those who must be
cunning to live; imbruted often with the brutishness of apathy,
consciousless of the dignity of manhood, only dully patient or viciously
keen as the ox is or the hawk. Many sottish-looking, or if not sottish
with the beery texture of those whose only recreation is to be bestially
merry at the drink-shop. This was the impression in which the few who
strode with the free air of the ideal Australian workman were lost, as
the few comfortable--seeming women were lost in the general weariness
of their weary sex.

Jollity there was none to speak of. There was an eager huckling for
bargains, or a stolid calculation of values, or a loud commendation of
wares, or an oppressive indifference. Where was the "fair" to which of
old the people swarmed, glad-hearted? Where was even the relaxed caution
of the shopping-day? Where was the gay chaffering, the boisterous
bandying of wit? Gone, all gone, and nothing left but care and sadness
and a careful counting of hard-grudged silver and pence.

Ned turned his head once or twice to steal a glance at Nellie. He could
not tell what she thought. Her face gave no sign of her feeling. Only it
came home to him that there were none like her there, at least none like
her to him. She was sad with a stern sadness, as she had been all day,
and in that stern sadness of hers was a dignity, a majesty, that he had
not appreciated until now, when she jostled without rudeness in this
jostling crowd. This dark background of submissive yielding, of hopeless
patience, threw into full light the unbending resolution carved in every
line of her passionate face and lithesome fig