Three different times we returned to the docks, but found no means of departure. Even the small merchant boats were overloaded. Finally, on Monday, October 12, I found a place on a small boat, which seemed fit for sailing on an ordinary creek. There were about sixty or seventy refugees on board. I then bade farewell to the beautiful plains of Belgium, to the Sisters and acquaintances in whose company we had passed so many happy and peaceful years; farewell to the Convent home, where we had learned the one true way to that perfect peace, which neither the storms of time nor the adverse fortunes of war can destroy; farewell to those dear little pupils who daily attended school, the remembrance of whose cheerful, innocent faces inspirit the days of exile, as does the cool, fresh fountain, the weary, way-worn traveler. Could this parting be final? No! a thousand times no! We shall meet again when these trials are over. The Belgians are a courageous people. Their country will rise from its grave of ashes; her exiled children will return; her cities will stand up from their ruins and flourish as they have never done before, and when Kings and Kaisers have become a memory, Sisters will be found at the bedside of the dying, and in the schools to teach the little children, and offer refuge to virtue and innocence within the Convent walls. We took our places on the deck of this little boat at one o’clock. The deck was not covered in any manner, and there were seats for about half of the number of passengers; but we crowded together as best we could, with a certain feeling of security, for we all knew that within a few hours we would be safely out of reach of those terrible bombs and shrapnel, and we had a firm belief that our friends in Antwerp would also succeed in finding a place of safety. We had just left the docks bound for Flushing, Holland, when the rain began to fall in torrents and a heavy wind came up. We huddled together under the few umbrellas and tried to have patience with our steamboat and the weather. One young lady, in the act of looking around, had the unspeakable chagrin of seeing her umbrella snatched out of her hand by the wind and carried away down the tide. A large ship at some distance, seeing the strange-looking object on the wave, rapidly approached, lowered a boat, and immediately the umbrella was taken on board.