We decided to go in a fortnight. My father paid her passage and gave her a hundred dollars in cash, just enough to enable us to spend a short time in New York, after which he expected either to send us more money or that we would return; and, in case we did this, an agreement was made with the shipping merchant that payment should be made on our arrival in Hamburg. On the 13th of March, 1853, we left the paternal roof, to which we should never return. My mother bade us adieu with tears in her eyes, saying, “_Au revoir_ in America!” She was determined to follow us. Here ends my Berlin and European life, and I can assure you that this was the hardest moment I ever knew. Upon my memory is forever imprinted the street, the house, the window behind which my mother stood waving her handkerchief. Not a tear did I suffer to mount to my eyes in order to make her believe that the departure was an easy one, but a heart beating convulsively within punished me for the restraint. My father and brothers accompanied us to the depot, where the cars received us for Hamburg. On our arrival there, we found that the ice had not left the Elbe and that the ship could not sail until the river was entirely free. So we were forced to remain three weeks in Hamburg. We had taken staterooms in the clipper ship _Deutschland_. Besides ourselves, there were sixteen passengers in the first cabin, people good enough in their way, but not sufficiently attractive to induce us to make their acquaintance. We observed a dead silence as to who we were, where we were going, or what was the motive of our emigrating to America. The only person that we ever spoke to was a Mr. R. from Hamburg, a youth of nineteen, who like ourselves had left a happy home in order to try his strength in a strange land. The voyage was of forty-seven days’ duration, excessively stormy but otherwise very dull, like all voyages of this kind, and had it not been for the expectations that filled our hearts, we should have died of _ennui_. As it was, the days passed slowly, made worse by the inevitable seasickness of our fellow-passengers, and we longed for the hour that should bring us in sight of the shores of the New World. And now commences my life in America. CHAPTER X _First impressions of New York--Marie takes walk alone the next day--Experience with a white slave agent--Confronted with her ignorance of the English language, she postpones proceeding to Philadelphia--Begins housekeeping in a small apartment with her sister Anna--Astounded by hearing that “female physicians” have no professional standing in New York, she puts out a sign and seeks private practice, as she did in Berlin--While waiting for patients, she builds up a business in making fancy worsted goods, Anna works for a dressmaker, and they soon become self-supporting. (Twenty-four years of age: 1853.)_