Kent or the Baroness Lehzen. The guard proved sufficient; yet it was
difficult to evade the lively intelligence of an observant sensible child.

"Why do all the gentlemen take off their hats to me and not to my sister
Feodora?" the little girl is said to have asked wonderingly on her return
from a drive in the park, referring to her elder half-sister, who became
Princess of Hohenlohe, between whom and the questioner there always
existed the strong sweet affection of true sisters. Perhaps the little
lady felt indignant as well as mystified at the strange preference thus
given to her, in spite of her sister's superiority in age and wisdom. We
do not know what reply was made to this puzzling inquiry, though it would
have been easy enough to say that the little Princess was the daughter of
an English royal Duke, therefore an English Princess, and the big Princess
was German on both sides of the house, while these were English gentlemen
who had saluted their young countrywoman. We all know from the best
authority that Sir Walter Scott was wrong when he fancied some bird of the
air must have conveyed the important secret to the little fair-haired
maiden to whom he was presented in 1828. The mystery was not disclosed for
years to come.

The child, though brought up in retirement, was by no means secluded from
observation, or deprived of the change and variety so advantageous to
human growth and development. From her babyhood in the sad visit to
Sidmouth in 1820, and from 1821, when she was at that pretentious
combination of fantasticalness and gorgeousness, the Pavilion, Brighton,
she was carried every year, like any other well-cared-for child, either to
the seaside or to some other invigorating region, so that she became
betimes acquainted with different aspects of sea and shore in her island.
Ramsgate was a favourite resort of the Duchess's. The little Thanet
watering-place, with its white chalk cliffs, its inland basin of a