# Ellie — The Water-Babies character guide

> Ellie in The Water-Babies by Charles Kingsley.

**Role:** supporting

**Also known as:** Miss Ellie, little Ellie, poor Ellie

**First appearance:** 0002-i

## Snapshot

A gentle, well-born little girl whose brief kindness to Tom leaves an ache he carries through the whole underwater world.

## Who they are

Ellie is the child of the great house whose chimney Tom tumbles down, and though she is a hundred times his size, he recognizes her instantly as kindred — a little girl, not a creature of another order. She is the first person to treat him gently, and the memory of her follows him into the river, where he longs to have her to play with. Her presence gives Tom's transformation its emotional stakes: he is not merely learning to be good, he is trying to become someone worthy of the one person who ever looked at him without disgust.

## In the story

### [The Water-Babies](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/chapters/the-water-babies)

A little girl who later teaches Tom to be good in the underwater world.

### [I](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/chapters/i)

The little white lady in the bedroom who screams upon seeing Tom.

### [III](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/chapters/iii)

Tom has forgotten about the little white girl (Ellie) from Harthover Place, as part of his amnesia after becoming a water-baby.

### [IV](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/chapters/iv)

Ellie is mentioned as the little white lady who appears in the chapter.

### [Chapter VI](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/chapters/vi)

Ellie teaches Tom daily, goes home on Sundays to a beautiful place, vanishes after Tom accuses her of wanting to get rid of him, and is sent away by the fairy.

### [The Other-end-of-Nowhere](https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/chapters/viii)

Ellie is mentioned indirectly through the story of Grimes's mother, who kept a school in Vendale and could not abide chimney-sweeps.

## Links

- HTML: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/characters/miss_ellie
- Book: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se
- All characters: https://www.betterreads.dev/discover/the_water_babies_se/characters