Page:The Letters Of Queen Victoria, vol. 1 (1908).djvu/40

18 austere routine of her early days. In an interesting letter of 1843 to the Queen, recalling the days of their childhood, Princess Feodore, the Queen’s half-sister, wrote—

“Many, many thanks, dearest Victoria, for your kind letter of the 7th from dear Claremont. Oh I understand how you like being there. Claremont is a dear quiet place; to me also the recollection of the few pleasant days I spent during my youth. I always left Claremont with tears for Kensington Palace. When I look back upon those years, which ought to have been the happiest in my life, from fourteen to twenty, I cannot help pitying myself. Not to have enjoyed the pleasures of youth is nothing, but to have been deprived of all intercourse, and not one cheerful thought in that dismal existence of ours, was very hard. My only happy time was going or driving out with you and Lehzen; then I could speak and look as I liked. I escaped some years of imprisonment, which you, my poor darling sister, had to endure after I was married. But God Almighty has changed both our destinies most mercifully, and has made us so happy in our homes—which is the only real happiness in this life; and those years of trial were, I am sure, very useful to us both, though certainly not pleasant. Thank God they are over! . .. I was much amused in your last letter at your tracing the quickness of our tempers in the female line up to Grandmamma, but I must own that you are quite right!”

But if there was little amusement, there was, on the other hand, great devotion ; the Princess, as a child, had that peculiar combination of self-will and warm-heartedness which is apt to win for a child a special love from its elders. The Princess Feodore wrote to the Queen, in 1843—

{{nobr|“. . . Sp&auml;th wished me to thank you for the coronation print, as she could not write to you or Albert now, she says! why, I don’t see. There certainly never was such devotedness as hers, to all our family, although it sometimes shows itself rather foolishly—with you it always was a sort of idolatry, when she used to go upon her knees before you, when you were a child. She and poor old Louis did all they could to spoil you, if Lehzen had not prevented and scolded them nicely sometimes; it was quite amusing.” {{nop}} {{smallrefs}}