“It does not look as if it agreed with him,” said the Princess.  “Poor little mammet!  Did I hear that you had the little Woodford here?  Is that you, girl?”

Anne courtesied herself forward.

“Ay, I remember you.  I never forget a face, and you have grown up fair enough.  Where’s your mother?”

“I lost her last February, so please your Royal Highness.”

“Oh!  She was a good woman.  Why did she not send you to me?  Well, well!  Come to my toilette to-morrow.”

So Princess Anne swept away in her rich blue brocade.  Her behest was obeyed, of course, though it was evidently displeasing to the nursery authorities, and Lady Strickland gave a warning to be discreet and to avoid gossip with the Cockpit folks.

Anne could not but be excited.  Perhaps the Princess would ask for her, and take her into the number of her own attendants, where she would no longer be in a Romish household, and would certainly be in a higher position.  Why, she remembered that very Lady Churchill as Sarah Jennings in no better a position than she could justly aspire to.  Her coming to Court would thus be truly justified.

The Princess sat in a silken wrapper, called a night-gown, in her chamber, which had a richly-curtained bed in the alcove, and a toilet-table with a splendid Venetian mirror, and a good deal of silver sparkling on it, while a strange mixture of perfumes came from the various boxes and bottles.  Ladies and tirewomen stood in attendance; a little black boy in a turban and gold-embroidered dress held a salver with her chocolate cup; a cockatoo soliloquised in low whispers in the window; a monkey was chained to a pole at a safe distance from him; a French friseur was manipulating the Princess’s profuse brown hair with his tongs; and a needy-looking, pale thin man, in a semi-clerical suit, was half-reading, half-declaiming a poem, in which ‘Fair Anna’ seemed mixed up with Juno, Ceres, and other classical folk, but to which she was evidently paying very little attention.

“Ah! there you are, little one.  Thank you, Master—­what’s name; that is enough.  ’Tis a fine poem, but I never can remember which is which of all your gods and goddesses.  Oh yes, I accept the dedication.  Give him a couple of guineas, Ellis; it will serve him for board and lodging for a fortnight, poor wretch!” Then, after giving a smooth, well-shaped white hand to be kissed, and inviting her visitor to a cushion at her feet, she began a long series of questions, kindly ones at first, though of the minute gossiping kind, and extending to the Archfields, for poor young Madam had been of the rank about which royalty knew everything in those days.  The inquiries were extremely minute, and the comments what from any one else, Anne would have thought vulgar, especially in the presence of the hairdresser, but her namesake observed her blush and hesitation, and said, “Oh, never mind a creature like that.  He is French, besides, and does not understand a word we say.”