But we would not overpaint the picture; and indeed this little girl had the compensations of her nature. Few could be harsh with her or help loving her--not Mrs. Makin, nor Mr. Obadiah Sedgewick, who knew so much about the Bible that he might have written it, especially its wrathful passages, nor certainly the Earl of Northumberland, who was the guardian appointed by the Houses. Moreover, being of the stuff maternal, she had natural duties to occupy her. She had mothered her dolls, very lovingly and intimately, in the times of absorbing unreality; now, awakened to the tremendous responsibilities of fact, her solicitude was transferred to their living substitute, the little baby Duke Henry of Gloucester. In her pretty, faithful stewardship of this small charge she forgot the worst of her own grief and loneliness. We would dilate upon her maternal resourcefulness, for in that was her natural development. It came to embrace in time the fortunes of her elder brother, the Duke of York, who, when he was thirteen and she eleven, was added to the party at St. James’s. In the interval Elizabeth had had a fall and broken one of her legs, an accident which, though surmounted, had further weakened an already delicate constitution. And then events came fast, culminating, after many disastrous defeats, in the virtual imprisonment of the King father at Hampton Court. There was a day which the little Princess never forgot, when all three were taken to visit the captive in his prison-palace. They slept the night there, and the tramp of the sentries in the long corridor got upon her nerves and haunted them for weeks afterwards. It seemed so dreadful that a king should have a gaoler. But now affairs were rushing to a crisis, and the alarmed heart of the child-mother inspired her to action. In this threatening of a dynasty it was imperative to secure the escape of her elder boy brother, and she set herself, the little courageous thing, to devise the means. Love made of her a very Machiavellian plotter, made of her small wits a counter-force against all the watchfulness and caution of great Ministers and their servants. Very innocently--in seeming--she prepared her ground: the three children, to beguile the tedium of their long confinement, took to playing hide-and-seek in the great empty Palace every evening after dark. And on the 21st of April, in the year 1648, the plot was ripe. “I will not hide to-night, Harry.” “Yes, Jamie, do, do.” “Will you not, Jamie dear, to please him?” “Why not you, sister? With your sad raiment, toning into the hangings and the shadows, you have always the advantage over us.” “But you have the better ideas. You shall wear one of my gowns if you like.” “Shall I? Then I shall be doubly equipped. Very well, send for a gown.” Amid the laughter of all, governess and attendants, assembled in the room, the young Prince became a girl. Little Harry was delighted, and clapped his hands.