me how many we had, and when she heard _seven_, seemed rather
appalled, considering this a number which she would never be able to reach.
She seems in perfect health, and is as merry and playful as a kitten."

Amongst the other innumerable engagements which engrossed every moment of
the Queen from the time of her accession, she had been called on to sit for
her portrait to many eager artists--among them Hayter and Sir David Wilkie.
The last has recorded his impression of her in his manly, unaffected,
half-homely words. "Having been accustomed to see the Queen from a child,
my reception had a little the air of that of an early acquaintance. She is
eminently beautiful, her features nicely formed, her skin smooth, her hair
worn close to her face in a most simple way, glossy and clean-looking. Her
manner, though trained to act the Sovereign, is yet simple and natural. She
has all the decision, thought, and self-possession of a queen of older
years, has all the buoyancy of youth, and from the smile to the
unrestrained laugh, is a perfect child. While I was there she was sitting
to Pistrucci for her coin, and to Hayter for a picture for King Leopold."

The mention of the coin recalls the "image and superscription" on the gold,
silver, and copper that passes through our hands daily, which we almost
forget to identify with the likeness of the young Queen. About this time
also commenced the royal patronage of Landseer, which resulted later in
many a family group, in which numerous four-footed favourites had their
place. At the exhibition of Landseer's works after his death, the sight of
these groups recalled to elderly men and women who had been his early
neighbours, the days when a goodly cavalcade of ladies and gentlemen, with
their grooms, on horseback, used to sweep past the windows, and the word
went that the young Queen was honouring the painter by a visit to his
studio.