The ecclesiastic Father Ruddlestone was daily, and for many hours, closeted with my kinswoman and benefactress; and I often, when admitted to her presence after one of these parleys, found her much dejected, and in Tears. He had always maintained a ghostly sway over her, and was in these latter days stern with her almost to harshness. And although I have ever disdained eavesdropping and couching in covert places to hear the foregatherings of my betters (which some honourable persons in the world's reckoning scorn not to do), it was by Chance, and not by Design, that, playing one wintry day in the Withdrawing-room adjoining the closet where my Grandmother still sat among her relics, I heard high words--high, at least, as they affected one person, for the lady's rose not above a mild complaint; and Father Ruddlestone coming out, said in an angry tone: "My uncle saved the King's life when he was in the Oak, and his soul when he was at Whitehall; and I will do his bidding by you now." "The Lord's will be done, not mine," my Grandmother said meekly. Then Father Ruddlestone passed into the Withdrawing-room, and seeing me on a footstool, playing it is true at the Battle of Hochstedt with some leaden soldiers, and two wooden puppets for the Duke and Prince Eugene, but still all agape at the strange words that had hit my sense, he catches me a buffet on the ear, bidding me mind my play, and not listen, else I should hear no good of myself, or of what an osier wand might haply do to me. And that a change was coming was manifest even in this rude speech; for my Grandmother, albeit of the wise King's mind on the proper ordering of children, and showing that she did not hate me when I needed chastening, would never suffer her Domestics, even to the highest, to lay a finger upon me. It was after these things, and while I was crying out, more in anger than with the smart of the blow, that she called me into her closet and soothed me, giving me to eat of that much-prized sweetmeat she said was once such a favourite solace with Queen Mary of Modena, consort of the late King James, and which she only produced on rare occasions. And then she bewailed my hurt, but bade me not vex her Director, who was a man of much holiness, full, when we were contrite, of healing and quieting words; but then, of a sudden, nipping me pretty sharply by the arm, she said: