I have never seen them elsewhere , or found them described in any floral catalogue . We called them the White Ladies . The Story Girl gave them the name . She said they looked like the souls of good women who had had to suffer much and had been very patient . They were wonderfully dainty , with a strange , faint , aromatic perfume which was only to be detected at a little distance and vanished if you bent over them . They faded soon after they were plucked ; and , although strangers , greatly admiring them , often carried away roots and seeds , they could never be coaxed to grow elsewhere . `` My story is about Mrs. Dunbar and the Captain of the FANNY , '' said the Story Girl , settling herself comfortably on a bough , with her brown head against a gnarled trunk . `` It 's sad and beautiful -- and true . I do love to tell stories that I know really happened . Mrs. Dunbar lives next door to Aunt Louisa in town . She is so sweet . You would n't think to look at her that she had a tragedy in her life , but she has . Aunt Louisa told me the tale . It all happened long , long ago . Interesting things like this all did happen long ago , it seems to me . They never seem to happen now . This was in ' 49 , when people were rushing to the gold fields in California . It was just like a fever , Aunt Louisa says . People took it , right here on the Island ; and a number of young men determined they would go to California . `` It is easy to go to California now ; but it was a very different matter then .
There were no railroads across the land , as there are now , and XXXXX you wanted to go to California you had to go in a sailing vessel , all the way around Cape Horn .
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