Bridie's Fire (Children of the Wind)

Bridie's world is torn apart when her parents and baby brother die in the Great Hunger. She leaves Ireland, and strikes out alone to claim a life for herself in Australia, on the other side of the ocean. 'Bridie looked up at the swirling stars. It was as if the sky and the whole world was opening up before her. In her rough boy's clothes, she wasn't Bridie O'Connor, an Irish waif. She wasn't an orphan girl at sea, a stranger in a new land. She wasn't even a servant any more. She had money in her leather pouch, a swag full of food and a good companion. She could be a whole new Bridie. Nothing could quench the fire in her now.'