It was about this visit that her maternal grandmamma at Coburg wrote to
her mamma: "I see by the English papers that Her Royal Highness the
Duchess of Kent went on Virginia water with His Majesty. The little
monkey must have pleased and amused him, she is such a pretty, clever
child."

To think of the great Victoria, Queen of Great Britain and Ireland, and
Empress of India, being called "a little monkey"! Grandmammas will take
such liberties. Three or four years later, according to that spicy and
irreverent chronicler, Charles Greville, the little Princess was not
pretty. But she was just entering on that ungracious period in which few
little girls are comely to look upon, or comfortable to themselves.
Greville saw her at a children's ball, given by the King in honor of his
little guest, the child-Queen of Portugal, Donna Maria II., da Gloria,
whom the King seated at his right hand, and was very attentive to.
Greville says she was fine-looking and very finely dressed, "with a
ribbon and order over her shoulder," and she must have seemed very grand
to the other children while she sat by the King, but when she came to
dance she "fell down and hurt her face, was frightened and bruised, and
went away." Then he adds: "Our little Princess is a short, plain child,
not so good-looking as the Portuguese. However, if Nature has not done so
much, Fortune is likely to do a great deal more for her."

Victoria did not know that, but like any other little girl she may,
perhaps, have comforted herself by thinking, "Well, if I'm not so
handsome and grand and smartly dressed as that Maria, I'm less awkward. I
was able to keep my head and not lose my feet."

As for her small Majesty of Portugal, she was at that time a Queen
without a crown and without a kingdom. She had come all the way from