Duchess Adelaide, but in three months she was again childless. She had none of the royal brothers' jealousy of the baby at Kensington, and she wrote to the Duchess of Kent, "My little girls are dead, but your child lives, and she shall be mine, too."

CHAPTER II

THE SCHOOLDAYS OF A PRINCESS

Nothing could be more simple than the order of the Princess' day at Kensington. Breakfast was at eight, and it was eaten out of doors whenever the weather was good. The Princess sat in a tiny rosewood chair beside her mother, and the little girl's breakfast was spread on a low table before her. Whatever other children might have, there were no luxuries for this child. Bread and milk and fruit made up her breakfast, and nothing more would have been given her no matter how she might have begged for it. After breakfast she would have liked to play with her beloved Féodore, but Féodore had to go to her lessons. When the weather was fair, however, a pleasure awaited the little girl. Her uncle, the Duke of York, had given her a white donkey, and at this hour she was allowed to ride it in Kensington Gardens. Her nurse walked beside her, and on the other side was an old soldier whom her father had especially liked. This riding was a great delight to the child, but there was sometimes a storm of childish wrath before the hour was over, for the Duchess had said, "She must ride and walk by turns," and when the turn came for walking, the tiny maiden often objected to obeying her mother's orders.

When it was time for the Duchess to eat luncheon, the Princess had her dinner, but it was so simple a meal that many of the servants of the palace would have felt themselves very hardly used if they had had no greater variety and no richer fare. The afternoon was often spent under the trees, and at some time, either before supper or after, came a drive with her mother. Supper was at seven, but the little girl's meal consisted of nothing but bread and milk. At nine o'clock she was put to bed, not in the nursery, but in her mother's room, for the Duchess had no idea of being separated from her children, and the Princess Féodore slept at one side of her mother, while on the other hand stood the little bed of the baby sister.

It was a simple, happy, healthy life. The great objection to it was that the child rarely had a playmate of her own age. Two little girls, daughters of an old friend of the Duke's, came once a week to see her, but they were several years her seniors. Féodore was never weary of playing with her, but Féodore was almost twelve years older, so that when the child was four years old, Féodore was quite a young lady. Perhaps no one realized how much she needed children of her own age, for she was so merry and cheerful, so ready to be pleased and amused, and so friendly with everyone who came near her.

A learned clergyman reported that when he called on the Duchess the little Princess was on the floor beside her mother with her playthings "of which I soon became one," he added.

One day the Duchess said: "Drina, there is a little girl only a year older than you who plays wonderfully well on the harp. Should you like to hear her?"

"I'm almost four years old," was the child's reply. "What is her name?"

"She is called Lyra," said the Duchess. "Should you like to hear her play?"

The Princess was very fond of music even when she was hardly more than a baby, and she could scarcely wait for the day to come when she could hear the little girl. At last Lyra and her harp were brought to the palace, and the music began. The talented child played piece after piece, then she stopped a moment to rest. This was the Princess' opportunity. Music was good, but a real little girl was a great rarity, and the small hostess began a conversation.

"Does your doll have a red dress?" she asked. "Mine has, and she has a bonnet with swans-down on it. Does yours have a bonnet?"

"I haven't any doll," answered Lyra.

"Haven't you any playroom?" asked the Princess wonderingly.

"No," said the little musician.

The Princess had supposed that all children had dolls and toys, and she said: "I have a playroom upstairs, and there are dolls in it and a house for them and a big, big ship like the one my papa sailed in once. Haven't you any ship or any doll-house?"

"No."

"Haven't you any sister Féodore?"

"No."

Then the warm-hearted little Princess threw her arm around the child musician and said:

"Come over here to the rug, and let's play. You shall have some of my playthings, and perhaps your mamma will make you a doll-house when you go home."

The Duchess had left the two children for a few minutes, and when she returned they were sitting on the fur rug in front of the fire. The harp was forgotten, and they were having a delightful time playing dolls, just as if they were not the one a princess and the other a musical prodigy. They were too busy to notice the Duchess, and as she stood at the door a moment, she heard her little daughter saying:

"You may have the doll to take home with you, Lyra. Put on her red dress and her white bonnet and her cloak, for she'll be ill if you don't. Her name is Adelaide, for that is my aunt's name."

The Princess was not yet four years old, but her mother was beginning to feel somewhat anxious about her education. Other children might play, but the child who was to be queen of England must not be allowed to give even her babyhood to amusement. The mother began to teach her the alphabet, but the little girl had a very decided will of her own, and she did not wish to learn the alphabet.

"But you will never be able to read books as I do, if you do not learn," said the mother.

"Then I'll learn," promised the child. "I'll learn very quick."

The alphabet was learned, but the resolutions of three-year old children do not always endure, and the small student objected to further study.

"My little girl does not like her books as well as I could wish," wrote the Duchess to her mother; but the grandmother took the part of the child. "Do not tease your little puss with learning," was her reply. "She is so young still. Albert is only making eyes at a picture book." This Albert was one of the Princess' German cousins only a few weeks younger than she; and the great delight of the Coburg grandmother was to compare the growth and attainments of the two children and note all their amusing little speeches.

The Duchess, however, did not follow the advice of her mother, but more than a month before her little daughter was four years old she decided to engage a tutor for her. She herself and Féodore were reading English with the Rev. Mr. Davys, the clergyman of a neighboring parish, and during even the first few lessons the Duchess was so charmed with his gentle, kindly manner and his intellectual ability that she said to him one day: "You teach so well that I wish you would teach my little daughter."

So it was that the learned clergyman appeared at the palace one bright April morning armed with a box of alphabet blocks. The Duchess seemed quite troubled and anxious about the small child's intellectual deficiencies, and when the preparations for the lesson had been made, she said:

"Now, Victoria, if you are good and say your lesson well, I will give you the box of bright-colored straw that you wanted."

"I'll be good, mamma," the little girl promised, "but won't you please give me the box first?"

The lesson began with a review of the alphabet; then came a struggle with the mysterious b-a, b-e, b-i, b-o, b-u, b-y, "which we did not quite conquer," the tutor regretfully writes. Mr. Davys kept a journal of the progress of the Princess during the first two years of his instruction, and he records gravely after the second lesson that she pronounced much as muts, that he did not succeed in teaching her to count as far as five, and that when he tried to show her how to make an o, he could not