Once introduced to Mrs. Cameron, and aware that she resided so near them, Mr. and Mrs. Hamilton cultivated her acquaintance; speedily they became intimate.  In Mrs. Fortescue’s broken and dying narrative, she had more than once mentioned them as the friends of her husband, and having been most kind to herself.  Edward had alluded to Captain Cameron’s care of him, and parting advice, when about to embark for England; and Ellen had frequently spoken of Mrs. Cameron’s kindness to her when a child.  All those who had shown kindness to her sister were objects of attraction to Mrs. Hamilton, and the widow speedily became so attached to her and her amiable family, that, on Walter being suddenly ordered out to Ireland (which commands, by the way, the young man obeyed with very evident reluctance), she gladly consented to rent a small picturesque cottage between Moorlands and Oakwood, an arrangement which added much to the young people’s enjoyment; while the quiet repose of her present life, the society of Mrs. Hamilton and her worthy husband, as also that of Mr. Howard, restored the widow to happiness, which had not been her portion since her husband’s death; and now, for the first time, Mrs. Hamilton became acquainted with those minute particulars which she had for the last nine years desired to know, concerning the early childhood of those orphans then committed to her care.  That her sister had been partial, it was very easy to discover; but the extent of the evil, and the many little trials Ellen’s very infancy had to encounter, were only subjects of conjecture, for she could not bear to lead them to speak on any topic that might in the least have reflected on the memory of their mother.

The intelligence therefore which she now obtained explained all that had been a matter of mystery and surprise in Ellen’s character, and rendered clearer than ever to Mrs. Hamilton the painful feelings which had in opening youth actuated her niece’s conduct; and often, as she listened to Mrs. Cameron’s account of her infant sufferings and her mother’s harshness and neglect, did Mrs. Hamilton wish such facts had from the first been known to her; much sorrow, she felt assured, might have been spared to all.  She would perchance have been enabled to have so trained her and soothed her early-wounded sensibility, that all the wretchedness of her previous years might have been avoided, but she would not long allow her mind to dwell on such things.  She looked on her niece as dearer than ever, from the narrative she had heard, and she was thankful to behold her thus in radiant health and beauty, and, she hoped, in happiness, although at times there was still a deeper shade of seriousness than she loved to see imprinted on her brow, and dimming the lustre of her eye, but it caused her no anxiety.  Ellen’s character had never been one of light-hearted glee; it would have been unnatural to see it now, and she believed that appearance of melancholy to be her natural disposition, and so too, perhaps, the orphan regarded it herself.