The Queen says that she "cried much" over the magnificent but difficult
problem of her destiny, but the tears must have been April showers, for
in those days she was accounted a bright, care-free little damsel, and
was ever welcome as a sunbeam in the noblest houses of England--such as
Eaton Hall, the seat of the Duke of Westminster; Wentworth House,
belonging to Earl Fitzwilliam; Alton Towers, the country house of the
Earl of Shrewsbury; and Chatsworth, the palace of the Duke of Devonshire,
where such royal loyal honors were paid to her that she had a foretaste
of the "splendor," without the "responsibility," of Queenhood.

The King and Queen gave a brilliant ball in honor of "the thirteenth
birthday of their beloved niece, the Princess Victoria," and somewhat
later, the little royal lady appeared at a Drawing-room, when she is said
to have charmed everybody by her sweet, childish dignity--a sort of
quaint queenliness of manner and expression. She was likewise most
satisfactory to the most religiously inclined of her subjects who were to
be, in her mien and behavior when in the Royal Chapel of St. James, on
the interesting occasion of her confirmation. She is said to have gone
through the ceremony with "profound thoughtfulness and devout solemnity."

The next glimpse I have of her is at a very different scene--the Ascot
races. A brilliant American author, N. P. Willis, who then saw her for
the first time, wrote: "In one of the intervals, I walked under the
King's stand, and saw Her Majesty the Queen, and the young Princess
Victoria, very distinctly. They were leaning over the railing listening
to a ballad-singer, and seeming as much interested and amused as any
simple country-folk could be. The Queen is undoubtedly the plainest woman
in her dominions, but the Princess is much better-looking than any
picture of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of
England, quite unnecessarily, pretty and interesting. She will be sold,