Which side she might take depended on the will of others.
For her understanding was sluggish; and, though there was latent in her character a hereditary wilfulness and stubbornness which, many years later, great power and great provocations developed, she was as yet a willing slave to a nature far more vivacious and imperious than her own.

The person by whom she was absolutely governed was the wife of Churchill, a woman who afterwards exercised a great influence on the fate of England and of Europe.
The name of this celebrated favourite was Sarah Jennings.

Her elder sister, Frances, had been distinguished by beauty and levity even among the crowd of beautiful faces and light characters which adorned and disgraced Whitehall during the wild carnival of the Restoration.

On one occasion Frances dressed herself like an orange girl and cried fruit about the streets.

[271] Sober people predicted that a girl of so little discretion and delicacy would not easily find a husband.