person.

These fresh mysteries occupied my mind for the greater part of that
uneventful voyage. To throw them off, I laughed and talked as much
as possible with the rest of the passengers. Indeed, I gained the
reputation of being "an awfully jolly girl," so heartily did I throw
myself into all the games and amusements, to escape from the burden
of my pressing thoughts: and I believe many old ladies on board were
thoroughly scandalised that a woman whose father had been brutally
murdered should ever be able to seem so bright and lively again. How
little they knew! And what a world of mystery seemed to oppress and
surround me!

At last, early one morning, we reached the Gulf, and took in our
pilot off the Straits of Belleisle. I was on deck at the time,
playing a game called "Shovelboard." As the pilot reached the ship,
he took the captain's hand, and, to my immense surprise, said in an
audible voice:

"So you've the famous Miss Callingham for a passenger, I hear, this
voyage. There's the latest Quebec papers. You'll see you're looked
for. Our people are expecting her."

I rushed forward, fiery hot, and with a trembling hand took one of
the papers he was distributing all round, right and left, to the
people on deck. It was unendurable that the memory of that one event
should thus dog me through life with such ubiquitous persistence. I
tore open the sheet. There, with horrified eyes, I read this hateful
paragraph, in the atrociously vulgar style of Transatlantic
journalism: