Until within a year or so of the time when this story opens, they had lived in the pretty seaside village of Chormouth, in the south of Devonshire. Their father, Philip Guntry, was a sailor. He earned good wages as second mate on board a merchant vessel, while their mother employed some of her leisure time in lace-making, a work at which she was particularly skilful. So they were comfortably off, and Millie and Phil, in those days, knew nothing of want and privation.
Sometimes, when Millie sat alone in their small close lodgings in Swift Street, she would shut her eyes and conjure up before her the village street and the pretty little cottage that had been her home for so many happy years. Very wistfully she thought of the little room which, with its dainty bed and spotless hangings of white muslin, she had once called her own; of the lovely view from its window; of the creeping rose bush, whose clusters of white blossoms had awakened her on many a sunshiny morning by gently tapping on her window pane; of the comfortable, homely kitchen, and of the parlour where they sat on Sundays, or entertained visitors who, having dropped in for a chat, were prevailed upon to stay and take a cup of tea.
So time had passed happily and prosperously with the Guntrys until Millie was nearly ten years old. Then a terrible trouble shadowed the brightness of their home; and, alas! other griefs came rapidly upon the footsteps of the first.
Philip Guntry, who had been absent on a long voyage, was daily expected at Chormouth. Anxious eyes scanned the shipping intelligence for news of the "Cynthia," and his wife spent many weary nights in listening to the blustering wind, and the distant swell of the ocean. The gales of that autumn were unusually severe, and wrecks and disasters were of such frequent occurrence that Mrs. Guntry's heart might well sicken with fear as days and weeks passed by and brought no news of her husband's arrival in England.
At last, one morning, she read in a newspaper that a broken piece of timber, bearing the name of the "Cynthia," had been picked up at sea, from which fact it was concluded that the vessel in question had been wrecked during the fearful gales of the past weeks, and that all hands on board had perished.
It was indeed a trial to the poor wife. Her worst forebodings were realised, and in the first agony of her grief, her spirits sank beneath the blow. But she was a brave little woman, and knowing that it now devolved upon her to support herself and her children, she put all selfish indulgence of her sorrow aside, and with willing hands, though with a heavy heart, set herself resolutely to her lace-making, which, once a mere pastime for leisure moments, had now to become a necessary and serious occupation for the whole of the day. Even then she found it a difficult matter to make both ends meet. True, there was a little fund of money in the Savings Bank. It had been placed there against a rainy day, but though the rainy day had now come, she felt that there might be a stormier one in the future, and would not touch it.
By dint, however, of working early and late, and living very frugally, she was able to live on in the old home—it would have broken her heart to leave it—and send the children regularly to school, where Phil was doing wonders, and was already looked upon as a genius.
With constant occupation, and in the peace of mind that her cheerful resignation to God's will brought with it, there presently sprang up within her a belief, which, though weak at first, grew stronger as time went on. It was a belief that her husband still lived, and that he would eventually return to her. She told her little daughter of her new-born hope, for Millie was thoughtful and gentle beyond her years, and her mother and she were very closely bound together in sympathy and love.
"Millie," she would say to her, when in the long winter evenings Phil was away at his drawing class, and mother and daughter sat alone by the fireside, "Millie, I can't understand why I feel so sure that your father will come back to us some day. It seems impossible, I know, but I can't get rid of an inward conviction that he is not dead. Yet perhaps it is only because my hope of seeing him again is so great that it seems as if it must be realised."
But her hope was never realised on earth. Within a year of the wreck of the "Cynthia" smallpox broke out in the village. The dreadful disease spread rapidly, and Mrs. Guntry was one of the first to sicken. An empty cottage on the outskirts of the village had been hastily prepared as a hospital for the sufferers. To this she was taken, and here, in a week or two, she died.