me of the mischievous gossip that had passed.

"There, Portia, that is what you get by walking with that stupid
Humphreys," said Oriana. "She knows no better than to blab to any
one who will be at the trouble to seem sweet upon her, though she
may get nothing by it."

"Would it be better if she did?" asked Anne.

"Oh well, we must all look out for ourselves, and I am sure there is
no knowing what may come next. But I hear we are to move to Windsor
as soon as the child is strong enough, so as to be farther out of
reach of the Cockpit tongues."

This proved to be true, but the Prince and his suite were not lodged
in the Castle itself, a house in the cloisters being thought more
suitable, and here the Queen visited her child daily, for since that
last alarm she could not bear to be long absent from him. Such
emissaries as Colonel Sands did not again appear, but after that
precedent Lady Strickland had become much more unwilling to allow
any of those under her authority to go out into any public place,
and the rockers seldom got any exercise except as swelling the
Prince's train when he was carried out to take the air.

Anne looked with longing eyes at the Park, but a ramble there was a
forbidden pleasure. She could not always even obtain leave to
attend St. George's Chapel; the wish was treated as a sort of
weakness, or folly, and she was always the person selected to stay
at home when any religious ceremony called away the rest of the
establishment.

As the King's god-daughter it was impressed on her that she ought to
conform to his Church, and one of the many priests about the Court
was appointed to instruct her. In the dearth of all intellectual
intercourse, and the absolute deficiency of books, she could not but
become deeply interested in the arguments. Her uncle had forearmed
her with instruction, and she wrote to him on any difficulty which
arose, and this became the chief occupation of her mind, distracting
her thoughts from the one great cloud that hung over her memory.
Indeed one of the foremost bulwarks her feelings erected to fortify
her conscience against the temptations around, was the knowledge
that she would have, though of course under seal of confession, to
relate that terrible story to a priest.

Hester Bridgeman could not imagine how her Portia could endure to
hear the old English Prayer-book droned out. For her part, she
liked one thing or the other, either a rousing Nonconformist sermo