There were not many cabin passengers on the ship, and these were too much absorbed in finding their state-rooms and settling their luggage to pay any attention to, or even to think of, the few German and English emigrants, who went to their own quarters on the middle deck.  And so no one noticed the girl, who clung so timidly to the Welsh woman, and who shook with cold and nervousness as she sat down upon the berth allotted to her and glanced furtively around at the people and the appointments of the place.  Everything was scrupulously clean, but of the plainest kind, and “steerage” seemed written everywhere.  There was nothing aristocratic in Bessie’s nature, and, if necessary, she would have broken stone upon the highway, and still Neil himself could not have rebelled more hotly against her surroundings than she did for a few moments, feeling as if she could not endure it, and that if she staid there she must throw herself into the sea.

“Oh, I cannot bear it—­I cannot.  Why did I come?” she said, as she felt the trembling of the vessel and knew they were in motion.  “Oh, can’t I go back?  Won’t they stop and let me off?” she cried convulsively, clutching the arm of Mrs. Goodnough, who tried to comfort her.

“There! there, darling!  Don’t take it so hard,” she said, tenderly caressing the fair head lying in her lap.  “They’ll not stop now till we are off Queenstown, when there will be a chance to go back if you like, but I don’t think you will.  America is better than Wales.  You will be happy there.”

Bessie did not think she should ever be happy again, but with her usual sweet unselfishness, and thoughtfulness for others, she tried to dry her tears, so as not to distress her companion, and when the latter suggested that she go out and look at the docks of Liverpool and the shores as they passed, she pulled up her hood and tied on her vail, and with her back to anyone who might see her from the upper deck, where the first-class passengers were congregated, she stood gazing at the land she was leaving, until a chilly sensation in her bones and the violent pain in her head sent her to her berth, which she did not leave again for three days and more.

She knew when they stopped at Queenstown, and was glad for a little respite from the rolling motion, which nearly drove her wild and made her so deadly sick.  But she did not see the tug when it came out laden with Irish emigrants, of whom there was a large number.  Of these the young girls and single women were sent to the rear of the ship, where Bessie lay, half unconscious of what was passing around her, until she heard the sound of suppressed weeping, so close to her that it seemed almost in her ear.

Opening her eyes, she saw a young girl sitting on the floor, with her head upon the berth next to her own, sobbing convulsively and whispering to herself: 

“Oh, me father, me father; me heart is breaking for you.  What’ll ye do without yer Jennie, when the nights are dark and long.  Oh, me poor old father, I wish I had niver come.  We might have starved together.”