Daddy's Girl by L.T. Meade

There was a pretty white room at Silverbel in which lay a patient child. She lay flat on her back just as she had lain ever since the accident. Her bed was moved into the wide bay window, and from there she could look out at the lovely garden and at the shining Thames just beyond. From where she lay she could also see the pleasure boats and the steamers crowded with people as they went up and down the busy river, and it seemed to her that her thoughts followed those boats which went toward the sea. It seemed to her further that her spirit entered one of the great ships at the mouth of the Thames and crossed in it the boundless deep, and found a lonely man at the other side of the world into whose heart she crept.

"I am quite cosy there," she said to herself, "for father's perfect heart is big enough to hold me, however much I suffer, and however sad I am."