meals together at a round table. When they did not go to church, the
duchess read a sermon aloud and commented pleasantly on it. As early as
1830 Thomas Moore heard the Princess Victoria sing duets with her mother,
who also sang some pretty German songs herself.

Nor are there lacking traces of strict and chastening discipline. The
princess had been early taught that there are good habits and duties in
the management of money. When she was buying toys at Tunbridge Wells, her
wishes outran her little purse, and the box for which she could not pay
was not carried away on credit, but set aside for her to fetch away when
the next quarter-day would renew her allowance. Fraeulein Lehzen says, 'The
duchess wished that when she and the princess drove out, I should sit by
her side, and the princess at the back. Several times I could not prevent
it, but at last she has given in, and says on such occasions with a laugh
to her daughter: "Sit by me, since Fraeulein Lehzen wishes it to be so."
But,' says the governess, 'I do not hesitate to remark to the little one,
whom I am most anxious not to spoil, that this consideration is not on her
account, because she is still a child, but that my respect for her mother
disposes me to decline the seat.' Once when the princess was reading how
Cornelia, the mother of the Gracchi, introduced her sons to the first of
Roman ladies with the words, 'These are my jewels,' she looked up from her
book, and remarked: 'She should have said my _Cornelians_.'

[Illustration: Princess Victoria--Early Portrait.]

Mrs Oliphant remembers of having in her own youth seen the Princess
Victoria, and says: 'The calm full look of her eyes affected me. Those
eyes were very blue, serene, still, looking at you with a tranquil breadth
of expression which, somehow, conveyed to your mind a feeling of
unquestioned power and greatness, quite poetical in its serious