had thought it safer that his other attendants should come in by
degrees in the morning, and thus Miss Woodford was the only actually
effective nursery attendant at hand. His food was waiting by the
fire in his own sleeping chamber, and thither he was carried. There
the Queen held him on her lap, while Anne fed him, and he smiled at
her and held out his arms.

The King came, and making a sign to Anne not to move, stood
watching.

Presently he said, "She has kept one secret, we may trust her with
another."

"Oh, not yet, not yet," implored the Queen. "Now I have both my
treasures again, let me rest in peace upon them for a little while."

The King turned away with eyes full of tears while Anne was lulling
the child to sleep. She wondered, but durst not ask the Queen,
where was the tiler's wife; but later she learnt from Miss Dunord,
that the woman had been so terrified by the cries of the multitude
against the 'pretender,' and still more at the sight of the sea,
that she had gone into transports of fright, implored to go home,
and perhaps half wilfully, become useless, so that the weaning
already commenced had to be expedited, and the fretfulness of the
poor child had been one of the troubles for some days. However, he
seemed on his return to have forgotten his troubles, and Anne had
him in her arms nearly all the next day.

It was not till late in the evening that Anne knew what the King had
meant. Then, while she was walking up and down the room, amusing
the little Prince with showing by turns the window and his face in a
large mirror, the Queen came in, evidently fresh from weeping, and
holding out her arms for him, said, after looking to see that there
was no other audience--

"Child, the King would repose a trust in you. He wills that you
should accompany me to-night on a voyage to France to put this
little angel in safety."

"As your Majesty will," returned Anne; "I will do my best."

"So the King said. He knew his brave sailor's daughter was worthy
of his trust, and you can speak French. It is well, for we go under
the escort of Messieurs de Lauzun and St. Victor. Be ready at
midnight. Lady Strickland or the good Labadie will explain more to
you, but do not speak of this to anyone else. You have leave now,"
she added, as she herself carried the child towards his father's
rooms.

The maiden's heart swelled at the trust reposed in her, and the
King's kind words, and she kept back the sense o