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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.
Anne was persuaded that she had done nothing worse than give an involuntary start, but it was not of the least use to say so, and she began to think that perhaps others knew better than she did. Miss Dunord, who had never been more than distantly polite to her in England, was of course more thrown with her at St. Germain, and examined her closely. Who was it? What was it? Had she seen it before?
"Have you seen anything?" "I It may be nothing. He is dead!" stammered Anne. "Oh then, 'tis naught but a maid's fancies," said the nurse good- humouredly. "Miss Dunord is in no mind for the sports, so she will stay with His Highness, and you had best come with me and drive the cobwebs out of your brain." "Indeed, I thank you, ma'am, but I could not," said Anne.
It was the night when Mistresses Dunord and Bridgeman were due, and Anne followed Jane Humphreys to her room, asking a little about the duties of the morrow. "We must be dressed before seven," said the girl. "One of us will be left on duty while the others go to Mass. I am glad you are a Protestant, Miss Woodford, for the Catholics put everything on me that they can."
For her part, she liked one thing or the other, either a rousing Nonconformist sermon in a meeting-house or a splendid Mass. "But, after all," as Anne overheard her observing to Miss Dunord, "it may be all the better for us.
Then she turned to consult Miss Dunord on her endeavour to improve the trimmings of a dress of Miss Humphreys. "Yes, I know you are always in Our Lady's colours, Pauline, but you have a pretty taste, and can convince Jane that rose colour and scarlet cannot go together." "My father chose the ribbons," said Jane, as if that were unanswerable. "City taste," said Miss Bridgeman.
Certainly Miss Dunord did earnestly assure her that to adopt her Church, invoke the Saints, and have Masses for the dead was the only way to lay such ghosts; but Anne remained obdurate, and thus was isolated, for there were very few Protestants in the fugitive Court, and those were of too high a degree to consort with her.
Pauline Dunord was as eager for the sermon as Jane Humphreys was for the supper, and Hester Bridgeman was in an odd mood of uncertainty, evidently longing after the sports, but not daring to show that she did so, and trying to show great desire to hear the holy man preach, together with a polite profession of self-denial in giving up her place in case there should not be room for all.
Pauline Dunord was by far the best of the three, but she seemed to live a life apart, taking very little interest in her companions or anything around her except her devotions and the bringing them over to her Church.
She was a kindly, portly Englishwoman, who seemed wrapped up in her charge, and she greeted her new subordinate in a friendly way, which, however, seemed strange in one who at home would have been of an inferior degree, expressed hopes of her steadiness and discretion, and called to Miss Dunord to show Miss Woodford her chamber.
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