It is not to be wondered at, since queens afforded such examples of laxity, that fine ladies followed with alacrity the unseemly fashion. Miss Strickland notices the fact, that great ladies had, in the days upon which we are treating, a bad custom of proceeding with the affairs of the toilet during prayers; which was severely satirized, says the fair historian, in one of the old plays of that era, “where the fashionable belle is described preparing for her morning toilet, by saying her prayers in bed to save time, while one maid put on her stockings, and the other read aloud the play-bill.” The consort of George III., the “good” Queen Charlotte, lived in a transition time, and wore the costumes of two separate centuries. The little lady lacked taste; and though she set the fashion to loyal maids and matrons, seldom became the robes she wore. But at the worst of these periods she displayed more taste, and, what is better than taste, more personal cleanliness, than her daughter-in-law, the coarse wife of the heartless George IV. Queen Adelaide was simply a lady. Expensive dresses were her abhorrence; and she never put on a robe of state without a sigh at the cost. In any sphere of life she would have been a thoroughly tidy, honest, careful housewife. Except for a few days, Queen Victoria has not resided at Anne’s favourite Kensington since her accession. In her early days, the then little princess,—clad so simply that it is wonderful the middle classes did not avail themselves of the example, and dress their darlings less tawdrily,—might be seen of a bright morning in the enclosure in front of the palace, her mother at her side. On one of these occasions I remember seeing a footman, after due instruction given, bringing out to the lively daughter of the Duke of Kent a doll most splendidly attired,—sufficiently so to pass for the εἴδωλον of an heiress, and captivate whole legions of male _poupées_, all gold without, and sawdust within. The brilliant effigy, however, had no other effect upon the little princess but to put her in a passion. She stamped her little foot and shook her lustrous curls, and evidently the liveried Mercury had unwittingly disobeyed her bidding. He disappeared for a minute or two, but returned, bearing with him a very _torso_ of a doll. A marine-store dealer would not have hung up such an image, even to denote that he dealt in stolen goods, and “no questions asked.” But the unhappily deformed image was the loadstone of the youthful affections of the princess. She seized it with frantic delight, skipped with it over the grass, gambolled with it, laughed over it, and finally, in the very exuberance of joy, thrust it so suddenly up to the face of a short old lady, who was contemplating the scene from the low iron fence, that the stranger started back and knew not well what to make of it; thereupon the maternal Mentor advanced, and something like an apology appeared to be offered, but this was done with such a shower