First, of course, Carolyn May thought she would run away—she and Prince. She could not eat any dinner, although Aunty Rose called her twice and she did feel a little faint, for she possessed a hearty appetite. But the child knew that the very first mouthful she tried to swallow would choke her—and then she would cry. Perhaps Aunty Rose understood this, for she did not trouble the little girl again. Carolyn May sat for a long time under the tree beside the sleeping dog and thought how different this life at The Corners was from that she had lived with her father and mother in the city home. If only that big ship, the _Dunraven_, had not sailed away with her papa and her mamma! Carolyn May had been very brave on that occasion. She had gone ashore with Mrs. Price and Edna after her mother’s last clinging embrace and her father’s husky “Good-bye, daughter,” with scarcely a tear. She had watched the huge vessel sweep off from the dock and out into the stream, carried by the outgoing tide and helped by a fussy tug, which latter she had thought preposterously small to be of any real service to such a huge craft as the _Dunraven_. They had run to the very end of the pier, too; so as to see the last of the outgoing ship. Of course, the faces of her father and mother were lost to her vision in the crowd of other passengers, but her mother had waved her pink veil, as agreed, and Carolyn May could see that for a long while. Of course, she had been brave! Mamma would return in a few weeks, and then, after a time, papa would likewise come back—and, oh! so rosy and stout! No more cough, no longer a feeble step, no longer breathless after he had climbed the two flights to their apartment. These things the little girl, left behind, had fully understood. She looked forward confidently to the happy return of both her parents. And then, in two weeks, came the fatal news of the sinking of the _Dunraven_ and the loss of all but a small part of her crew and passengers. The steamer had gone down quickly, and in the night, with the dim coast of Africa far, far to the southward and many, many leagues of troubled sea between her grave and the Spanish coast. The two warring vessels—which one had caused the sinking of the _Dunraven_ would probably never be known—had not even discovered till daylight that there was a remnant of the _Dunraven’s_ company adrift on the sea. These were finally rescued by the victorious combatant, and in a heavy fog. The exact spot where the _Dunraven_ had sunk was not known. Vaguely these facts had become known to Carolyn May. She never spoke of them. They did not seem real to the little girl. After all, she could not believe that her father and mother had gone on so long a journey that they would never again return to her. But now, sitting beside the condemned Prince—her companion and only real comforter during these weeks of her orphanhood—the little girl felt bitterly her loneliness and grief.