Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/23

Rh the circumstances of the child not proving to be a son instead of a duaghter. I feel it due to myself to declare that such sentiments are not in unison with my own, for I am decidedly of opinion that the decrees of Providence are at all times wisest and best." As this was addressed to a clergyman and a Doctor of Divinity, it may be inferred that Her Majesty's father was not without a sense of humor. Another story of the Duke is that, playing with his baby when she was a few months old, he held her high in his arms and said, "Look at her well, for she will be the Queen of England." It must be remembered, however, that at this time there was no certainty that the children of the Duke and Duchess of Clarence would not survive the perils of infancy; moreover, if the Duke of Kent had lived to have a son, the boy would have become the heir in preference to his sister. The Duke's strongly marked feeling of fatherly pride and affection is almost the only trait in his character by which we are able at this distance of time to conjure him up out of the mists of bygone years. This feeling was soon to receive a melancholy illustration. The Duke and Duchess, with their baby daughter, removed from Kensington to Sidmouth to spend the winter of 1819-20. Returning home on a January day, with boots wet with snow, the Due caught a severe chill from playing with his baby, instead of changing his boots. The illness developed into acute pneumonia, of which he died in January, 1820, leaving his wife a stranger in a strange land, hardly able to speak the