I was pleased that dear Uncle Sam’s letter was wanted for King George’s collection, impressed with the good manners that prompted the two gentlemen to take the trouble to acknowledge it, and cheered by this side light of the way the English “carried on” their peaceful avocations during that year of chaos, 1917. CHAPTER VI A STAY AT THE WHITE HOUSE The year 1867 brought changes. Hellas once more called my father to her aid. The insurrection of the Cretans against the Turk in 1866 was one of the most courageous struggles for freedom the world has seen. The American hero of the Greek Revolution kept in close touch with all that concerned Greek freedom. With Byron he had “dreamed that Greece might yet be free”; during his long life he never lost the vision, never failed to lend a hand to every effort for emancipation. The failure of the insurrection brought awful suffering upon the Cretan refugees, largely women and children. My father raised a considerable sum of money to invest in clothing and provisions, and in the winter of 1867 sailed for Greece, once again as Boston’s almoner to feed the hungry and clothe the naked. My mother, Julia, and Laura went with him, leaving Harry, a sophomore at Harvard, Florence, and myself at home. The only kind of rest my father ever knew was change of activity; he took his rare vacations strenuously. We went to East Boston to see the travelers off on the _Asia_, one of those small Cunarders of the sixties that took thirteen days to cross the ocean. Having never seen an ocean steamer, I examined minutely every part open to an inquisitive child. I was left in the charge of Flossie, who having lately become engaged to David Prescott Hall, elected to stay at home, yielding to Laura the opportunity of going to Europe. Flossie’s task was no easy one, for I bitterly resented being left behind; her devotion was the beginning of a close bond between us. The next seven months brought strange experiences. I had never been separated from my parents and supposed them indispensable to my very life. For the first few weeks I mourned passionately. Gradually there came a dawning sense of individuality; I found I could live without either parent and get through the days not too uncomfortably. I began to understand my mother’s dictum, “We come into the world alone, we go out of the world alone; there is nothing to us but ourselves!” When after seven months’ absence the travelers returned we went down the harbor to meet them. The passage had been a severe one; the red funnels of the _Asia_ were caked with salt from the spray that had constantly dashed over them. I found my father on deck, warming his back against the smokestack, and remember his showing me the hole burnt in his new London overcoat by the heat. When they saw me, my father and mother exchanged a significant glance: they had left me a child, they found me a half-grown girl.