My father was travelling at the expense of a charitable organization, without means of his own, without plans, to a strange world where he had no friends; and yet he wrote with the confidence of a well-equipped soldier going into battle.

The rhetoric is mine.

Father simply wrote that the emigration committee was taking good care of everybody, that the weather was fine, and the ship comfortable.

But I heard something, as we read the letter together in the darkened room, that was more than the words seemed to say.

There was an elation, a hint of triumph, such as had never been in my father's letters before.