The little Duke of Gloucester formed such a warm attachment for Mrs. Davies that he loved to nestle in her lap and confide to her all his secret woes. His younger and fairer associates, who lavished flattery and attention on him, were not half so attractive as the honest dame, who, having nothing to gain or lose, always told him the truth. The royal boy's religious education had not been neglected; prayers had been read to him twice every day by his chaplain; but he never knew what they meant, {410}nobody had taken the trouble to explain them; and he had naturally paid little attention to what he had failed to understand. Mrs. Davies soon comprehended where the difficulty lay; and it was from her lips that the duke learned the Lord's Prayer, the Creed, the Ten Commandments, and several hymns, all of which were carefully and patiently explained until they were made clear to his infant mind. One Sunday, when the princess was preparing to go to church, her son asked if he might accompany her. She was surprised, because he had never made such a request before, but gave permission. Then the little Duke of Gloucester ran to inform his governess, Lady Fitzharding, who asked him if he would say the psalms,--a performance to which he had always objected. "I will sing them," proudly replied the boy; thus showing the effect of his aged friend's instruction. One day, while the princess was making her toilet, the boy looked up into her face and asked: "Mamma, why have you two chaplains, and I but one?" "Pray," returned the mother, with an amused smile, "what do you give your one chaplain?" She merely asked this question to hear what sort of a reply her son would make, and to find out whether he knew that the chaplains of the royal household received no pay. The little duke looked at her earnestly for a moment, and then said: "Mamma, I give him his liberty!" The princess laughed heartily at the little boy's unconscious repartee. On his return to Campden House the Duke of Gloucester found his soldier company posted as sentinels on guard, and they received their commander with presented arms and all the honors of war. After that the daily drill took place regularly on an open plain, called Wormwood Common. {411}One morning the duke fell with a pistol in his hand, and hurt his forehead against it. The wound was still bleeding when he reached Campden House, and the ladies began to pity him; but he put on a bold air and told them "that a bullet had grazed his forehead, but that as a soldier he could not cry when wounded." There was so much ceremony observed among the royal attendants all the time that Mr. Tratt, the tutor, considered it an infringement of his rights when Jenkins, the Welsh usher, undertook to give the Duke of Gloucester his first lessons in fencing and mathematics.