Who believes Madame Adeline is her mother?
Hetty was abandoned at the Foundling Hospital as a newborn baby. Children abandoned at the Hospital are in Foster care or fostered until the age of five, at the nearest date when they turn five they will be returned to the hospital to start their education. Hetty spends her earlier life as a foster child under the care of Peg and John Cotton who she knows as her mother and her father. She is very unaware that she will one day have to leave the Cottons. There are other foster children in her home as well as Peg and John's own children. At one point, she attends a circus, where she meets Madame Adeline, whom she believes to be her mother because of her bright red hair, which is similar to Hetty's own.
A few weeks later, the time comes for Hetty and Gideon to be sent back to the Foundling Hospital. Everyone in the family is devastated, and Jem and Hetty promise to find each other again. Hetty finds her time in the hospital miserable and oppressive, and often rebels or otherwise talks back in an environment where she's expected to be meek and obedient. This earns her the animosity of the hospital's Matrons, who punish her severely. Despite that, she manages to make friends among fellow foundlings and even staff, including Ida, a kind kitchen maid.
Hetty