The judicious kindness of Mr. Hamilton to her children, the eldest of whom was now six years old, gave him still another claim on her affections and her gratitude. He counselled with her on the best course of education, the proper method of training a boy’s mind, and entered into the subject with all a father’s eagerness and anxiety. Ellen rejoiced that she had given her son such a protector, and looked forward to his making, under such guidance, a useful and an exemplary member of society. Mr. Hamilton found in Ellen new charms, new virtues, each succeeding day. She was one of those shrinking and sensitive creatures who cannot put forth half their powers of pleasing except in the intimacy of domestic life, and under the fostering hand of kindness. Before her first marriage she had been but a child, a timid frightened child—while the wife of Mr. Cresford, although adored by himself, he had been so fearful of her appearing too attractive in the eyes of others, that she had acquired the habit of trying to glide through life unobserved, in order to avoid any ebullitions of jealousy on his part, rather than of attempting to shine as an agreeable person. She was astonished and delighted when she saw her husband’s expressive eyes follow her as she spoke, and gleam on her with kindly pride when others seemed to admire her. Life was to her a new state of existence: not that she had hitherto been an unhappy person; she had always repeated to herself how much cause she had for gratitude: but the inward dancing of the heart she had never before experienced, and she often said to her husband, “Algernon, you make me too happy. This cannot last; something must happen: I do not deserve to be so blessed above the rest of womankind.” He would reply with a smile, “Do you fancy, Ellen, you are the only woman whose husband loves her?” “No, but I am the only woman in the world who am loved by you. Am I not?” she added, with a playful glance of entire confidence in his devotion. When parliament met, they repaired to London, and she then moved in a sphere vastly more elevated than that to which she had been introduced as Mrs. Cresford. But she had so much native grace and dignity, that she did not appear to be transplanted into a new soil, but rather to be now restored to that which was natural and congenial to her.