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With each year Victoria grew more attractive looking, and one night she stood before her glass scanning herself critically, while her eyes shone and her heart beat fast with excitement, for she was going to her first Drawing-room, and was thrilled at the idea.

Having arrived at Windsor Castle with her mother and a number of ladies and gentlemen in State carriages, escorted by a party of Life Guards, Victoria stood at the left of her aunt, the queen, in a maze of delight, watching the gay Court pageant, quite unconscious that she herself was a centre of attraction, with her fair skin, her big blue eyes, and her air of healthy, happy girlhood. Her dress was of simple white tulle, but there was no more conspicuous figure in all that royal assemblage, than the young Princess.

Like King George, when William IV succeeded to the throne, he was jealous of any honours paid to the young Princess or her mother, and even objected to their little journeys, calling them, with a sneer, “Royal Progresses,” and forbade the salutes given to the vessel which carried them back and forth from the Isle of Wight, to which petty jealousies the Duchess paid no heed, but continued to bring up her daughter as she thought fit; persevering in the “Progresses” which so annoyed the King, and all of his objections failed to make the Princess less than an object of intense interest and devotion to those people who would one day be her subjects.

Although she was still unconscious of the part she was to play in the history of the nation, the day was coming when she could no longer be kept ignorant of it. A bill was before Parliament called the Regency Bill, which named the Duchess of Kent as regent if the King should die before Victoria came of age, and she heard much conversation about the bill. The Duchess felt that the time had now come to tell her of the position which was to be hers in the future of England, and finally after a long talk with Baroness Lehzen, Victoria’s old governess, the way of telling her was decided upon.

On the following day, when the Princess was busily reading a book of history, the Baroness slipped a genealogical table on the page which Victoria was reading. She glanced at the slip of paper with an exclamation of surprise, then read it carefully and looking up, said with a startled expression, “Why, I never saw that before!”

“It was not thought necessary that you should,” replied the governess, and then there was a long silence. Then, after examining the paper again, the Princess glanced up and said with quaint solemnity, “I see I am nearer the throne than I supposed,” adding, “Now many a child would boast, not knowing the difficulty. There is much splendour, but there is also much responsibility.” Then placing her little hand in that of the Baroness, she said:

” Oh, I will be good! I understand now why you urged me so much to learn even Latin. You told me it was the foundation of English grammar, and all the elegant expressions, and I learned it as you wished it, but I understand all better now.”

Then pressing the Baroness’s hand again and looking solemnly into her eyes, she repeated, “I will be good!” and the Baroness felt a moisture rise in her eyes at the thought of what life might bring to challenge that vow.

The Princess was grave for a time after that day, then she grew accustomed to the new thought of her coming queendom, and was once more her gay, happy self, and there were three functions soon afterwards at which she appeared in all the joy of conscious power and happy girlhood.

On her thirteenth birthday the King and Queen gave a great ball in her honour, when she out-danced all the other girls, not because of her superior rank, but because of her grace and charm of manner. After the ball came a drawing-room when again the Princess had a glorious time, and another glimpse of her is at the Ascot races, when an American poet was thrilled to see her, with the Queen, leaning over the railing of the King’s stand, both listening to a ballad-singer with as keen interest as though they had been simple country folk instead of royalty, and he remarked that the Princess was far better looking than most of her photographs pictured her.