Bury Me Not at Sea — Marie Eyre

When her beloved Grandmother died, young Cleta Rogers found herself alone and penniless. So, she breathed a sigh of relief and gratitude when Grandmother's old friend Annie Mountain wrote to say Cleta was welcome in her enormous house in Key West.

Bidding farewell to the only life she had ever known, Cleta survived a torturous month aboard a storm-tossed passenger ship and arrived half-starved and exhausted. Anticipating an end to her loneliness and hardship she dragged herself to the forbidding Mountain mansion, only to hear Mrs. Mountain say she had never written to Cleta.