Queen Victoria, her girlhood and womanhood by [pseud.] Grace Greenwood
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page 8 of 239 (03%)
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the cook, insisted on broiling it. Albemarle adds that he, boy-like,
taunted her with her culinary failure, saying: "_You_ would make a pretty Queen, wouldn't you?" At another time, some years later, she came in her carriage to make a morning-call at his grandmother's, and seeing a crowd gathered before the door, attracted by the royal liveries, she ran out a back-way, came round, and mingled with the curious throng unrecognized, and as eager to see the Princess as any of them. Not being allowed the society of her mother, and that of her father not being considered wholesome for her, the Princess was early advised and urged to take a companion and counsellor in the shape of a husband. The Prince of Orange, afterwards King of the Netherlands, was fixed upon as a good _parti_ by her royal relatives, and he came courting to the English Court. But the Princess did hot altogether fancy this aspirant, so, after her independent fashion, she declined the alliance, and "the young man went away sorrowing." One of the ladies of the Princess used to tell how for a few minutes after the Prince had called to make his sad _adieux_, she hoped that Her Royal Highness had relented because she walked thoughtfully to the window to see the last of him as he descended the palace steps and sprang into his carriage, looking very grand in his red uniform, with a tuft of green feathers in his hat. But when the Princess turned away with a gay laugh, saying, "How like a radish he looks," she knew that all was over. It is an odd little coincidence, that a later Prince of Orange, afterwards King of the Netherlands, had the same bad luck as a suitor to the Princess or Queen Victoria. Charlotte's next lover, Leopold, of Saxe-Coburg, an amiable and able Prince, was more fortunate. He won the light but constant heart of the |
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