The weather continued good for the first week.
The bride and groom were daily to be seen on deck—well wrapped up, for the fine October days were cold on midocean.
Yet though they were every day on deck, they had never yet encountered Jennie.
How was that? And where was Jennie?
Jennie Montgomery was in her stateroom, so prostrated by seasickness that she was scarcely able to take care of her child. She had never once left her room even to go into the ladies’ saloon, but passed her time between her lower berth and her broad sofa.
Stewardess Hopkins became interested in poor little Jennie and her baby—“one as much of a baby as t’other,” she had said to one of the stateroom stewards—and so she showed them kindness from a heartfelt sympathy, such as no fee could have purchased.
On the eighth day out, Mrs. Hopkins was in the room with the young mother and child, when Jennie, looking gratefully at the stewardess, said, with tears in her eyes:
“Oh, Mrs. Hopkins, I do thank you with all my heart, but feel so deeply that that is not enough. I shall never, never be able to repay you for all your goodness to me.”
“Don’t talk in that way, my dear,” replied the stewardess, in self-depreciation.
“If it were not for you, I believe that I and baby should both die on the sea.”