The second daughter, Princess Amelia, or Emily, as she was more generally called, was better looking than her sister and far cleverer. In her youth she had considerable pretensions to beauty, and her ready wit made her the most popular of the princesses. “The Princess Amelia,” writes Lady Pomfret enthusiastically to Mrs. Clayton, “is the oddest, or at least one of the oddest princesses that ever was known; she has her ears shut to flattery and her heart open to honesty. She has honour, justice, good-nature, sense, wit, resolution, and more good qualities than I have time to tell you, so mixed that (if one is not a _devil_) it is impossible to say she has too much or too little of any; yet all these do not in anything (without exception) make her forget the King of England’s daughter, which dignity she keeps up with such an obliging behaviour that she charms everybody. Do not believe her complaisance to me makes me say one _silible_ more than the rigid truth; though I confess she has gained my heart and has added one more to the number of those few whose _desert_ forces one’s affection.”[32] This paragon of a princess had been the destined bride of the Crown Prince of Prussia afterwards Frederick the Great, but as the double marriage scheme fell through she continued single. Several minor German princes offered themselves, but she did not think them worthy of her acceptance. Yet she was far from indifferent to admiration, and had a liking for men’s society. She was of a masculine turn of mind, and her happiest hours were passed in the hunting field, and the stables and kennels. She liked to spend much time with her horses and discuss their points minutely with the grooms, and one Sunday she shocked the good people of Hampton Court by going to church in a riding costume with a dog under each arm. She shared her father’s passion for hunting, and was a far better rider than he. She used to hunt in a costume which was masculine rather than feminine, and rode hard and fearlessly, followed by her favourite groom, Spurrier. There is a curious portrait of her in a round hunting cap and laced scarlet coat, which makes her look like a man. She had flirtations with the Duke of Newcastle and the Duke of Grafton; that with the latter was serious. It went on for a long time, and the Princess seems really to have been attached to him, though he was much older than she. [Illustration: THE PRINCESS AMELIA. (SECOND DAUGHTER OF GEORGE II.)]