Gentle and unassuming, she won her way to every heart that knew her; she was the only remaining scion of Mrs.Hamilton's own family, and she felt pleased that by her union with Percy the families of Manvers and Hamilton would be yet more closely connected.

She had regretted much, at a former time, the extinction of the line of Delmont; for she had recalled those visions of her girlhood, when she had looked to her brother to support the ancient line, and gilding it with naval honours, bid it stand forth as it had done some centuries before.

Mrs.Hamilton had but little of what is termed family pride, but these feelings were associated with the brother whom she had so dearly loved, and whose loss she so painfully deplored.
The season of Christmas passed more cheerfully than Ellen had dared to hope.

The scene was entirely changed; never before had they passed a Christmas anywhere but at Oakwood, and that simple circumstance prevented the void in that domestic circle from being so sadly felt.
That Herbert was in the thoughts of all his family, that it was an effort for them to retain the cheerfulness which in them was ever the characteristic of the season, we will not deny, but affliction took not from the calm beauty which ever rested round Mr.Hamilton's hearth.

All appeared as if an even more hallowed and mellowed light was cast around them; for it displayed, even more powerfully than when unalloyed prosperity was their portion, the true beauty of the religious character.