f England still stood for something in
Whitehall, and so did reason and commonsense, and Dolly's own good name.
I began to perceive that matters were not so simple.

I do not think I reasoned at all as to her dangers there; but I was as
one who sees a flower on a dunghill. One does not argue about the
matter, or question whether it be smirched or not, nor how it got there.
Neither did I consider at all how my cousin came to be at Court, nor
whether any evil had yet come to her. I did not even consider that I did
not know whether she were but just come, or had been there a great
while. I considered only that she must be got out of it--and how to set
about it.

I might have stood and paced there till midnight, had not one of the
sentinels at the water-gate--placed there I suppose, as Mr. Chiffinch
had told me just now, as an additional security, after nightfall--stepped
out from his place and challenged me. I had had the word, of course, as I
came in; and I gave it him, and he was contented. But I was not. Here,
thought I, is my opportunity.

"Here," said I, "can you tell me where Mistress Dorothy Jermyn is
lodged?"

He was a young fellow, plainly from the country, as I saw, by his look
in the light of the lantern he had.

"No, sir," he said.

"Think again," I said. "She is under the protection of Her Grace of
Portsmouth. She is one of the Queen's ladies."

"Is she a little lady, sir--from the country--that came last month?"

"Yes," I said, feigning that I knew all about it, and trying to control
my voice. "That is she."

"Why, she is with the others, sir," he said.

"She is not with the Duchess then?"

"No, sir; I know she is not. There is no lady with the Duchess beside
her own. I was on my duty there last week."

This was something of a relief. At least she was not with that woman.

Now I knew where the Queen's Maids lodged. It was not an hundred yards
away, divided by a little passage-way from Her Majesty's apartment, and
adjoining the King's, with a wall between. There were five of these;
besides those who lodged with their families--but they changed so
continually that I could not be sure whether I knew any of them or not.
I had had a word or two once with Mademoiselle de la Garde; but she was
the only one I had ever spoken with; and besides, she might no longer be
there; and she was a great busybody too; and beyond her I knew only that
there was an old lady, whose name I had forgot, that was called