cloth petticoat, no
stockings, and old shoes, but with a clean white cap on her head--a
tilemaker's wife who had been captured in the village.

No sooner was the suffering, half-starved child delivered over to
her than he became serene and contented. The water-gruel regime was
over, and he began to thrive from that time. Even when later in the
afternoon the King himself brought in Colonel Sands, whom in the joy
of his heart he had asked to dine with him, the babe lay tranquilly
on the cradle, waving his little hands and looking happy.

The intrusion seemed to have been forgotten, but that afternoon
Anne, who had been sent on a message to one of the Queen's ladies,
more than suspected that she saw Jane in a deep recess of a window
in confabulation with the Colonel. And when they were alone at bed-
time the girl said--

"Is it not droll? The Colonel cannot believe that 'tis the same
child. He has been joking and teasing me to declare that we have a
dead Prince hidden somewhere, and that the King showed him the
brick-bat woman's child."

"How can you prattle in that mischievous way--after what Lady
Strickland said, too? You do not know what harm you may do!"

"Oh lack, it was all a jest!"

"I am not so sure that it was."

"But you will not tell of me, dear friend, you will not. I never
saw Lady Strickland like that; I did not know she could be in such a
rage."

"No wonder, when a fellow like that came peeping and prying like a
raven to see whether the poor babe was still breathing," cried Anne
indignantly. "How could you bring him in?"

"Fellow indeed! Why he is a colonel in the Life-guards, and the
Princess's equerry; and who has a right to know about the child if
not his own sister--or half-sister?"

"She is not a very loving sister," replied Anne. "You know well,
Jane, how many would not be sorry to make out that it is as that man
would fain have you say."

"Well, I told him it was no such thing, and laughed the very notion
to scorn."

"It were better not to talk with him at all."

"But you will not speak of it. If I were turned away my father
would beat me. Nay, I know not what he might not do to me. You
will not tell, dear darling Portia, and I will love you for ever."

"I have no call to tell," said Anne coldly, but she was disgusted
and weary, and moreover not at all sure that she, as the other
Protestant rocker, and having been in the Park on that same day, was
not credited with so