mistresses and the great ladies of the Court cast many a jealous and vindictive glance on the child, who had power to lure away their slaves to her nursery shrine. The Duke of Buckingham, himself, was prouder to be her favourite playfellow than of all his conquests in the field of love. He wrote songs, and sang them for her pleasure; he kept her in a ripple of laughter for hours together by his stories and clever mimicry, and rushed to her side whenever she summoned him to build card-castles or to join in a romp—until what was "play to the child" began to prove a serious matter to the man of the world. He found that, while he was building castles or chasing the elusive fairy blindfolded, she had stolen his heart away; but when he ventured to tell his love to her she boxed his ears, and told him to run away and not be so naughty again.

Was there ever so tantalising and inscrutable a maid? And as she had treated the King and his chief favourite, she treated all her other playfellows. The Earl of Arlington, a grave, dignified Lord of the Bedchamber, so far unbended as to make love to the little witch, who stood so well in the favour of his Sovereign; and never did man exert himself more to win the favour of a maid.

George Hamilton, one of the most handsome and fascinating men in England, fared better, but retired from the pursuit of so seductive and tantalising a maid. Still Hamilton was the most congenial playfellow of them all. He was a madcap like herself, always ripe for fun and frolic; and for a time she revelled in his comradeship. He first won her heart in the following fashion. One day old Lord Carlingford was delighting and convulsing her by placing a lighted candle in his mouth, and hobbling to and fro thus illuminated. "I can do better than that," exclaimed the irrepressible Hamilton. "Give me two candles." The candles were produced. Hamilton lit them, and thrust the pair into his capacious mouth, and minced three times round the room before they were extinguished, while La belle Stuart paraded after him, clapping her hands and laughing in her glee.

Such a feat was an efficient passport to her favour. Rollicking George was at once installed as playmate-in-chief to the spoiled child, and was privileged with a greater intimacy than any of her other favourites had ever enjoyed.

It is conceivable that Hamilton, stimulated by such, no doubt, artless encouragement as he seems to have enjoyed, might have made a conquest where so many had failed, had not his future brother-in-law, Gramont, taken him seriously to task and warned him of the grave danger of flirting with the lady on whom the King had set eyes of love, and persuaded him at the eleventh hour to beat a dignified retreat.

Pepys draws a pretty picture of Miss Stuart at this time, as he saw her riding, among the Ladies of Honour, with the Queen in the Park.

How many hearts Frances Stuart toyed with and broke in these days of her girlish beauty and irresponsibility will never be known; but we know that at least one hopeless wooer committed suicide, and another, Francis Digby, Lord Bristol's handsome son, after years of unrequited idolatry, in his despair rushed away to seek and find death in the Dutch war.

And it was not only over men that Frances Stuart cast the spell of her witchery. One of her earliest and most ardent admirers was none other than my Lady Castlemaine herself, who alone claimed to hold her Sovereign's heart. So secure she thought herself of her supremacy that she not only took the French beauty into favour, but actually encouraged Charles in his pursuit of her, probably little realising how dangerous a rival she was taking to her bosom. It is said that this was but an artifice to divert Charles's attention from an intrigue that she was carrying on with that rakish beau, Henry Jermyn; but, whatever the cause, there is no doubt that for a time she lost no opportunity of throwing her Royal lover and the fair Stuart together. She even looked on smilingly at a mock marriage, at one of her own entertainments, between the pair—"with ring and all other ceremonies of church service and ribands, and a sack-posset in bed, and flinging the stocking, evincing neither anger nor jealousy, but entering into the diversion with great spirit."

And not only did she thus trifle with fire; for some months she rarely saw the King but in Miss Stuart's presence.

As a matter of fact Charles's maitresse en titre regarded the "Mademoiselle" as nothing more dangerous than a pretty, winsome child. "She is a lovely little thing," she once said patronisingly, "but she is only a spoiled child, fonder of her toys and games than of the finest lover in the world." But she was not long left in this unsuspicious Paradise. There was soon no doubt that the "child" had made a conquest of the King, and that she, the mother of his children, no longer held the throne of his heart.

Her first rude disillusionment came when Charles was presented by Gramont with "the most elegant and magnificent carriage (called a 'calash') that had ever been seen." The Queen herself and Lady Castlemaine each decided that she and no other should be the first to take an airing in Hyde Park in this georgeous vehicle, which was sure to create an unparalleled sensation; and each exerted her utmost arts and eloquence to secure this concession from the King.