The sense of the possible gain, and disgust at the shallow conversions of some around her, helped to keep her back.  She could not help observing that while Pauline persuaded, Hester had ceased to persuade, and seemed rather willing to hinder her.  Just before the State christening or rather admission into the Church, Lady Powys, in the name of the King and Queen, offered her the post of sub-governess, which really would mean for the present chief playfellow to the little Prince, and would place her on an entirely different platform of society from the comparatively menial one she occupied, but of course on the condition of conformity to Rome.

To be above the familiarity of Jane and Hester was no small temptation, but still she hesitated.

“Madam, I thank you, I thank their Majesties,” she said, “but I cannot do it thus.”

“I see what you mean, Miss Woodford,” said Lady Powys, who was a truly noble woman.  “Your motives must be above suspicion even to yourself.  I respect you, and would not have made you the offer except by express command, but I still trust that when your disinterestedness is above suspicion you will still join us.”

It was sore mortification when Hester Bridgeman was preferred to the office, for which she was far less fitted, being no favourite with the babe, and being essentially vulgar in tastes and habits, and knowing no language save her own, and that ungrammatically and with an accent which no one could wish the Prince to acquire.  Yet there she was, promoted to the higher grade of the establishment and at the christening, standing in the front ranks, while Miss Woodford was left far in the rear among the servants.

A report of the Dutch fleet having been destroyed by a storm had restored the spirits of the Court; and in the nursery very little was known of the feelings of the kingdom at large.  Dr. Woodford did not venture on writing freely to his niece, lest he should compromise her, and she only vaguely detected that he was uneasy.

So came All Saints’ Day Eve, when there was to be a special service late in the evening at the Romanised Chapel Royal at St. James’s, with a sermon by a distinguished Dominican, to which all the elder and graver members of the household were eager to go.  And there was another very different attraction at the Cockpit, where good-natured Princess Anne had given permission for a supper, to be followed by burning of nuts and all the divinations proper to Hallowmas Eve, to which were invited all the subordinates of the Whitehall establishment who could be spared.