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
simplicity.' While on a visit to Malvern she climbed walls and trees, and
rode on a donkey. One day she had climbed an apple tree, and could not get
down till relieved by the gardener, who got a guinea for his pains, which
was preserved and neatly framed. On another occasion, at Wentworth House,
the gardener cautioned her: 'Be careful, miss, it's slape' (using a
provincial form for 'slippery'), while she was descending a sloping piece
of turf, where the ground was wet.
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