She used to bring wayfarers of every sort in from the roads outside. We still may recognise some of the models living at Freshwater—the beautiful parlourmaid, King Arthur who in robes and armoured dignity appears so often in her camera, and who still meets travellers from the little steamer that runs from Lymington to Yarmouth Pier. Indeed wayfarers of every sort were made welcome by her. After my father’s death she welcomed us to her cottage, where fires of hospitality and sympathy were lighted and endless kindness and helping affection surrounded us from her and from Farringford through that cold and icy winter. When spring had passed and when at last summer was over, we gratefully returned to the sheltering bay where such good friends were to be found. The Camerons’ departure for Ceylon in 1875 will long be remembered—the farewells, the piles of luggage. Mrs. Cameron grave and valiant, with a thousand cares and preoccupations. Mr. Cameron with long white locks falling over his shoulders and dark eyes gleaming through spectacles, holding his carved, ivory cane in his hand and looking quietly at the preparations. There were animals—a cow I have been told among them, bales and boxes without number, their faithful maid Ellen and their son Hardinge, that spirited prop and adviser, ordering and arranging everything. He travelled with them, for he was on his way back to his post in the Civil Service at Colombo. Many of us came down to Southampton to see them off in the vast ship manned by Lascars, crowded with passengers and heaving from confusion into order. I can still see Mr. Cameron in his travelling dress looking quietly up and down the quay at the piles of luggage, at the assembled friends; he held a beautiful pink rose which Mrs. Tennyson had given him when he stopped at Farringford to take leave of her. A member of Mr. Cameron’s family whom I had never seen before, for he had lived in India, had come from London with his wife and was standing taking leave with the rest of us. He was strangely like Mr. Cameron, with white hair and bright fixed eyes; and even then, starting though they were for the great venture, Mrs. Cameron came forward and said to me that I must go back to town with her step-son and he would look after me.... I remember presently finding myself sitting in the railway carriage sadly flying home, away from the good friends of many a year, and vaguely wondering at the likeness of Mr. Cameron sitting on the opposite seat. Then at Waterloo, after putting me into a hansom, even the likeness departed and I never saw either of the two again. VIII. It is pleasant to read of the happy progress of the travellers. _From Julia Margaret Cameron to Alfred and Emily Tennyson._ 1875.