"No outward bodily harm at all, my dear. Yet even that was no thanks to me. It was `of the Lord's compassion,' seeing He had a purpose of mercy toward me. But, ah me! what inward and spiritual harm! Mrs Rhoda, my dear, I saw sights and heard sayings those two years I dwelt in the Court which I would give the world, so to speak, only to forget them now." "What were they, Mrs Dorothy?" asked Rhoda, eagerly sitting up. "Think you I am likely to tell you, child? No, indeed!" "But what sort of harm did they to you, Mrs Dolly?" "Child, I learned to think lightly of sin. People did not talk of sin there at all; the words they used were crime and vice. Every wrong doing was looked on as it affected other men: if it touched your neighbour's purse or person, it was ill; if it only grieved his heart, then 'twas a little matter. But how it touched God was never so much as thought on. There might have been no God in Heaven, so little account was taken of Him there." "Now do tell us. Mrs Dolly, what the Queen was like, and the King," said Rhoda, yawning. "And how many Maids of Honour were there? Just tell us all about it." "There were six," replied the old lady, taking up her knitting, which she had dropped in her earnestness a minute before. "And Mrs Sanderson was their mother. I reckon you will scarce know that always a married gentlewoman goeth about with these young damsels, called the Mother of the Maids, whose work it is to see after them." "And keep them from everything jolly!" exclaimed Rhoda. "Now, that's a shame! Wouldn't it be fun to bamboozle that creature? I protest I should enjoy it!" "O Mrs Rhoda! Mrs Rhoda!" "I should, of all things, Mrs Dolly! But now, what were the King and Queen like? Was she very beautiful?" [Note: Charles the Second and Catherine of Braganza.] "No," said Mrs Dorothy, "she was not. She had pretty feet, fine eyes, and very lovely hair. 'Twas rich brown on the top of her head, and descending downward it grew into jet black. For the rest, she was but tolerable. In truth, her teeth wronged her by sticking too far out of her mouth; but for that she would have been lovelier by much." "Horrid!" said Rhoda. "I forget where she came from, Mrs Dolly?" "She came from Portingale, my dear, being daughter to the King of that country, and her name was Catherine." "And what was the King like?" "When he was little, my dear, his mother, Queen Mary, used to say he was so ugly a baby that she was quite ashamed of him. He was better-favoured when he grew a man; he had good eyes, but a large Mouth." [Note: Queen Mary was Henrietta Maria, always termed Queen Mary during her own reign.] "He was a black man, was he not?" By which term Rhoda meant what we now call a dark man. "Yes, very black and swarthy." "Where did he commonly live?"