Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/138

 measurements she carefully brought back. He has the Royal look I have heard grandmamma talk about, which I think she said was so remarkable in the Queen when a baby."

The two youngest of the Queen's nine children, Prince Leopold and Princess Beatrice, were born respectively on 7th April, 1853, and on 14th April, 1857. The Queen's letter announcing Prince Leopold's name to her uncle has already been quoted (see p. 24). She said it would recall the days of her childhood to hear "Prince Leopold" again; among his other names the little Prince was given that of Duncan, in "compliment to dear Scotland." His delicate constitution was a source of anxiety from very early years. He was the only one of the flock of Royal children whose health was not good. It fell to the happy lot of the Princess Beatrice to be the special pet and plaything of her father during the last years of his life, and also, as we all know, to be the companion and solace of her mother in later years when all her other daughters had married and left her. There are numerous instances in the later volumes of the "Prince Consort's Life" of his delight in his youngest daughter, "the most amusing baby we have had." He constantly wrote about her droll ways and sayings to his married daughter in Berlin. Thus in July, 1859, he wrote: "The little aunt makes daily strides, and is really too comical. When she tumbles she calls out in bewilderment, 'She don't like it, she don't like it!' and she came into breakfast a short time ago (with her eyes full of tears) moaning, 'Baby has been so naughty, poor baby so naughty,' as one might complain of being ill, or having slept badly," &c.

In the seventeen years from 1840 to 1857 the Queen had had nine children, all but one of good physical