drawing-room she stood, moving about from one to the other, talking for a
short time to each, and also speaking to the gentlemen as they came from
the dining-room. A whist table would be made up for the Duchess of Kent.
The Queen and the others seated themselves about a large round table and
engaged in conversation.'

'Poor little Queen!' said Carlyle, with a shake of his head at the time,
'she is at an age when a girl can hardly be trusted to choose a bonnet for
herself, yet a task is laid upon her from which an archangel might
shrink.' Her Majesty was not overawed, however, and expressly declared to
her mother that she ascended the throne without alarm. 'She is as merry
and playful as a kitten,' wrote Sir John Campbell.... 'She was in great
spirits, and danced with more than usual gaiety a romping, country-dance
called the Tempest.' An observant writer of this date says: 'She had a
fine vein of humour, a keen sense of the ludicrous; enjoyed equestrian
exercise, and rode remarkably well.'

N. P. Willis, the American poet, who saw her on horseback in Hyde Park,
said: 'Her Majesty rides quite fearlessly and securely; I met her party
full gallop near the centre of the Rotten Row. On came the Queen on a
dun-coloured, highly groomed horse, with her prime-minister on one side of
her, and Lord Byron on the other; her _cortege_ of maids of honour, and
lords and ladies of the court checking their spirited horses, and
preserving always a slight distance between themselves and Her Majesty.
... Victoria's round, plump figure looks exceedingly well in her
dark-green riding dress.... She rode with her mouth open, and seemed
exhilarated with pleasure.' James Gordon Bennett, who saw her at the
opera, describes her as 'a fair-haired little girl, dressed with great
simplicity in white muslin, with hair plain, a blue ribbon at the back....
Her bust is extremely well proportioned, and her complexion very fair.