he did not contemplate his own, his wife's, and his friend's disgrace,
from the contemptible quarrels among the women about the court.

"If you have good reasons," he writes, "for what you write of the
kindness and esteem the Queen has for Mrs. Masham and Mr. Harley, my
opinion should be, that my Lord Treasurer and I should tell her Majesty
what is good for herself; and if that will not prevail, to be quiet, and
to let Mr. Harley and Mrs. Masham do what they please; for I own I am
quite tired, and if the Queen can be safe I shall be glad. I hope the
Lord Treasurer will be of my mind; and then we shall be much happier
than by being in a perpetual struggle."

At length the mask of affected humility assumed by Mrs. Masham was
thrown off entirely; and, confident in the support of her royal
mistress, the upstart favourite exhibited all the scorn and insolence
which was in her nature. The Duchess expatiates with feminine
pertinacity upon the stinging impertinences and insulting condescensions
she had to endure from her lately exalted cousin. One instance she
dwells on with bitter recollection, for it was the first time the minion
of the Queen had dared to show her how little she regarded her.

When having with difficulty obtained an interview with Mrs. Masham, the
Duchess upbraided her with her treachery, and observed, that she was
certain no good intentions towards herself could have influenced her
actions, Abigail replied:--

"... very gravely, that she was sure the Queen, who had always loved me
extremely, would _always be very kind to me_. I was some minutes before
I could recover from the surprise with which so extraordinary an answer
struck me. To see a woman whom I had raised out of the dust put on such
a superior air, and to hear her assure me, by way of consolation, that
the Queen would always be very kind to me!--I was stunned to hear her
say so strange a thing!"

The Duchess of Marlborough was now, therefore, at open variance with her
cousin. Towards her Majesty she stood in a predicament the most curious
and unprecedented that perhaps ever existed between sovereign and
subject. The amused and astonished court beheld Anne cautiously creeping
out of that subjection in which the Duchess had, according to her
enemies, long held the timid sovereign.

A confidential friend of the Duchess, Mr. Mainwaring, remarks of her, in
one of his letters, that she was totally deficient in that "part of
craft which Mr. Hobbes