“And after he was gone,” she resumed, “we had nothing. Never had he earned enough for my mother to put by any savings. So we took to selling off what was in the house, and she to doing sewing and embroidering, but in a little while she saw it was no use—there’d be nothing for us but starvation unless some great piece of fortune befell us. My mother was a devout woman and she prayed morning and night and often through the day for help for her children, and her prayers, she thought, were answered when word came from my father’s brother who was in America, that if she’d bring the children to him, he’d care for them with his own, and she could be about some kind of work. In America, he said, there were chances. He sent us money for the journey, but not very much—all he could afford, of course. So mother, who was not afraid to do anything for her children’s sake, took passage with other poor people in the steerage of a great ship sailing from Queenstown.” “Poor little dear,” said Azalea. “Poor little dear!” echoed Mary Cecily. “There were swarms of us on that boat. We were all huddled and mixed; a torment to each other, with the number of us. And the sea was very rough. Day after day it stormed, and my little mother, worn with work and worry, was ill unto death. Others were ill, but not so cold, so weak, so weary as she. But few could give her attention. They said: ‘She’ll be well in a while.’ But she woke me one night and told me she would never be well; that she could feel her heart giving way. She gave me the address of my uncle, and told me not to lose it whatever I did, and she had me pin the money that was left, on my little shirt and told me God would raise up friends for me, who would give me directions to my uncle’s door, and that once there I was safe. I listened till she had finished and then I ran for help. At first the ship’s doctor did not want to come out of his warm berth, but I got on my knees to him and he came. He thought ’twas only a case of seasickness, and maybe he was right. But my little lion-hearted one died that night. So David and I were alone in the world.” The memory of the old anguish was upon her, and she stared before her at the great trees of her “estate,” all of her life dropping back to that bleak hour when she was left an orphan among those many poor in the great ship’s heart. “Oh,” cried Azalea, “I hope you won’t think about it, Mrs. Rowantree. That’s how I manage to get along. I say to myself: ‘My sorrow is sacred. I will not take it out and look at it often. I will leave it in a holy place. It will be safe there. I will go my way, doing happy, common things.’ Can’t you look at your trouble that way, Mrs. Rowantree?” Mary Cecily turned her misty blue eyes on Azalea. “My girl,” she said solemnly, “I have not yet told you of my real trouble.” Azalea caught her breath. “Well?” she breathed.