It was decided, then, that the Duchess would remain in England, and that Kensington Palace should become the home of the Princess Alexandrina Victoria. This was a large, comfortable-looking abode. It had been a favorite home of several of the English sovereigns. About it were gardens cut into beds shaped like scrolls, palm leaves, ovals, circles, and all sorts of conventional figures so prim and stiff that one might well have wondered how flowers ever dared to grow in any shape but rectangular. The yew trees were trimmed into peacocks and lions and other kinds of birds and beasts. All this was interesting only as a curiosity, but there was a pretty pond and there were long, beautiful avenues of trees. There were flowers and shrubs and soft green turf. It was out of the fog and smoke of the city; indeed it was so far out that there was danger of robbers to the man who ventured to walk or drive at night through the unlighted roads. For many years after the birth of the Princess a bell was rung Sunday evenings so that all Londoners might meet and guard against danger by going over the lonely way to their homes in one large company. The life at Kensington was very quiet. No one would have guessed from seeing the royal baby that the fate which lay before her was different from that to be expected for any other child who was not the daughter of a Prince. She spent much of the time out of doors, at first in the arms of her nurse, then in a tiny carriage, in which her half-sister, the Princess Feodore, liked to draw her about. "She must learn never to be afraid of people," declared the wise mother, and before the child could speak plainly she was taught to make a little bow when strangers came near her carriage and say, "Morning, lady," or "Morning, sir." The little girl was happy, but life was hard for the mother. She had given up her home and her friends, and now she had to give up even her own language, for English and not German must be her child's mother tongue, and she set to work bravely to conquer the mysteries of English Her greatest comfort in her loneliness was the company of the Duchess Adelaide, wife of the Duke of Clarence. For many weeks after the death of the Duke of Kent, the Duchess drove to Kensington every day to spend some time with her sister-in-law. When the Princess was about a year and a half old, a little daughter was born to the Duchess Adelaide, but in three months she was again childless. She had none of the royal brothers' jealousy of the baby at Kensington, and she wrote to the Duchess of Kent, "My little girls are dead, but your child lives, and she shall be mine, too." CHAPTER II THE SCHOOLDAYS OF A PRINCESS