Ellen's parents were not natives of the land in which she now resided.
They had come from one of the counties of England, when Ellen was little
more than an infant; their original destination being Canada, but having
been wrecked on the Newfoundland coast, and lost nearly all they
possessed, they had not means to travel farther; and while Williamson
gladly joined the fishermen in their occupation for the purpose of
temporarily supplying the necessities of his family, his wife,--who was
a skilful needle woman, and clever at almost everything,--made herself
generally useful among their families, and thus acquired much influence
over them.
Gradually they came to look upon the sterile coast, unlike, strangely
unlike though it was, to the cultivated lands they had left, as their
home, at least for some years to come. Both frugal and industrious, a
little cottage was speedily erected, which very soon, from the superior
thrift and neatness of its owners, became the best in the place, and as
time passed on, they not only continued to gain a subsistence, but
succeeded in gathering round them many little comforts, which were the
admiration and, sometimes, the envy of their less fortunate neighbors.
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