"Let me tell you a bit of personal sentiment that links me to the old town of Chester on the River Dee. There is a house there that, until recently, was in the possession of my husband's family for nobody knows how many generations. Thousands of travellers go every year to see the inscription over its door. Once, over two hundred years ago, an awful plague swept the town, and every family in it lost one or more of its household. Only this one house was spared, and in grateful memory of its escape there was carved over the door the inscription:
"That became the family motto, and it is engraved here in my wedding-ring. The beautiful thought has helped me over many times of perplexity and sorrow, and has become the inspiration of my life. Because we can trace it back to that place, I have grown to love every stone in the quaint old streets of Chester."
She sat twisting the plain gold circlet on her finger for a moment, and then added thoughtfully: "In the light of her history America might well set that inscription over her own door: 'God's providence is mine inheritance.' It would be none the less appropriate because it reaches back past the struggling colonists and past the _Mayflower_ to find the roots of that faith in the mother country, in a little English town beside the Dee.
"No, my dear," she exclaimed, looking up at Mildred; "it is not a land of strangers you are going to. We sing 'America' and you sing 'God Save the Queen,' and we both feel sometimes that there is a vast difference between the songs. But they are set to the same tune, you know, and to alien ears, who cannot understand our tongue or our temperament, they must sound alike."
Life seemed very different to Mildred when she went to her stateroom that night, and her cheery companion inspired her with so much hope before the voyage was over that she began to look forward to landing with some degree of interest. How much of her new-found courage was due to the presence of her helpful counsellor Mildred did not realize until she came to the parting. They were standing at the foot of the gangplank in the New York custom-house.
"I am sorry that I cannot stay to see you safe in your uncle's care," the lady said, "but my son tells me there is barely time to catch the next train to Boston. Good-bye, my child. If you get lonely and discouraged, think of the motto in my wedding-ring, and take it for your own."