The duchess was reading from
a volume she carried (probably that one), and the little princess's soft
eyes were tearful.
The princess, it appears, was much devoted to dolls, and played with them
until she was nearly fourteen years old. Her favourites were small wooden
dolls which she would occupy herself in dressing; and she had a house in
which they could be placed. As she had no girl companions, many an hour
was solaced in this manner. She dressed these dolls from some costumes she
saw in the theatre or in private life. A list of her dolls was kept in a
copy-book, the name of each, and by whom it was dressed, and the character
it represented, being given. The dolls seem to have been packed away about
1833. Of the 132 dolls preserved, thirty-two were dressed by the princess.
They range from three to nine inches in height. The sewing and adornment
of the rich coloured silks and satins show great deftness of finger.
Her wise mother withheld her from the pomp and circumstance of the court.
She was not even allowed to be present at the coronation of her uncle, the
Duke of Clarence, when he ascended the throne as William IV. He could not
understand such reticence, was annoyed by it, and expressed his annoyance
angrily. But his consort, good Queen Adelaide, was always kind and
considerate: even when she lost all her own little ones, she could be
generous enough to say to the Duchess of Kent, 'My children are dead, but
yours lives, and she is mine too.
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