"I wish that I could change places with her," thought the girl. "She is
so old that she cannot have many homesick years in store, while I--left
alone in the world at seventeen, and maybe never to see dear old England
again--" The thought brought such an overwhelming sense of desolation
that she could not control her tears. Drawing her heavy black veil over
her face, she hurriedly made her way to her deck-chair, and sank down to
sob unseen, under cover of its protecting rugs and cushions.

This was the first time that Mildred Stanhope had ever been outside of
the village where she was born. The only child of an English clergyman,
the walls of the rectory garden had been the boundary of her little
world. She could not remember her mother, but with her father for
teacher, playmate, and constant companion, her life had been complete in
its happiness.

If the violets blooming within the protecting walls of the old rectory
garden had suddenly been torn up by the roots and thrown into the
street, the change in their surroundings could have been no greater than
that which came to Mildred in the first shock of her father's death. She
had been like one in a confused dream ever since. Some one had answered
the letter from her mother's brother in America, offering her a home.
Some one had engaged her passage, and an old friend of her father's had
taken her to Liverpool and put her on board the steamer. Here she sat
for the first three days, staring out at the sea, with eyes which saw
nothing of its changing beauty, but always only a daisy-covered mound in
a little churchyard. All the happiness and hope that her life had, ended
in that.

"Who is the pretty little English girl?" people asked when they passed
her. "She doesn't seem to have an acquaintance on board."