It was a long and wearisome voyage. There was an old English clergyman on board, who collected curiosities; to him she sold her rings and brooches, and thereby obtained more than sufficient money to pay her passage. She hardly spoke to any one except her child. Those of her fellow-parishioners who knew her, and perhaps guessed her history, kept aloof from her, and she was grateful to them that they did. From morning till night, she sat in a corner between a pile of deck freight and the kitchen skylight, and gazed at her little boy who was lying in her lap. All her hopes, her future, and her life were in him. For herself, she had ceased to hope. “I can give thee no fatherland, my child,” she said to him. “Thou shalt never know the name of him who gave thee life. Thou and I, we shall struggle together, and, as true as there is a God above, who sees us, He will not leave either of us to perish. But let us ask no questions, child, about that which is past. Thou shalt grow and be strong, and thy mother must grow with thee.” During the third week of the voyage, the English clergyman baptized the boy, and she called him Thomas, after the day in the almanac on which he was born. He should never know that Norway had been his mother’s home; therefore she would give him no name which might betray his race. One morning, early in the month of June, they hailed land, and the great New World lay before them. III. Why should I speak of the ceaseless care, the suffering, and the hard toil, which made the first few months of Brita’s life on this continent a mere continued struggle for existence? They are familiar to every emigrant who has come here with a brave heart and an empty purse. Suffice it to say that at the end of the second month, she succeeded in obtaining service as milkmaid with a family in the neighborhood of New York. With the linguistic talent peculiar to her people, she soon learned the English language and even spoke it well. From her countrymen, she kept as far away as possible, not for her own sake, but for that of her boy; for he was to grow great and strong, and the knowledge of his birth might shatter his strength and break his courage. For the same reason she also exchanged her picturesque Norse costume for that of the people among whom she was living. She went commonly by the name of Mrs. Brita, which pronounced in the English way, sounded very much like Mrs. Bright, and this at last became the name by which she was known in the neighborhood.