Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Fiction
"I want to be rich," said the third, "and then I can travel whenever I
choose, and buy all the books I choose without having to write them,
and all the pictures I choose without having to paint them. But what do
you want, Alix?"
The Princess Alix had been thinking, and she answered slowly, "If I
could have just what I wanted, I would choose that everyone who saw me
should love me."
However it was with the others, the Princess Alexandra surely had her
wish, for everyone who met her seemed to love her. The Queen called her
"the fairy," and so great a dignitary as Dean Stanley thought of her in
the same way, for after he had had a long talk with her in the corner
of the drawing room, telling her how the service of the Church of
England differed from that of the Danish Church, he wrote in his diary,
"She is as charming and beautiful a creature as ever passed through a
fairy tale." "The little gem of Denmark is the pet of the country,"
declared the newspapers. The unbounded admiration that had been shown
to Queen Victoria in the early days of her reign was given to
Alexandra. When the Queen came to the throne, young girls who were
small and had fair hair and blue eyes were happy. _Now_, it was bliss
to have any feature that resembled the Danish Princess. She had a
custom of letting two curls of brown hair fall on each shoulder, and
straightway English fashions demanded that every girl should wear four
curls hanging on her shoulders. For months London was at the height of
gayety. The Princess represented her royal mother-in-law at the drawing
rooms of the season; no easy task, for so many ladies attended the
first that it took four long hours for them to pass the throne. All
this time the Princess Alexandra and the Princess Alice stood to
receive them, except for one little resting time of twenty minutes.
There were receptions and most magnificent balls, at which all the
dignitaries tried their best to make themselves agreeable to the young
Princess.
Of course the Queen had no heart for these festivities, but she was
glad to have the people pleased, and for one of the most elaborate
entertainments she sent decorations and furnishings from Buckingham
Palace. The Princess Alice and Prince Louis were with her for several
months before the marriage of the Prince of Wales; and only three or
four weeks after the great event, a little Hessian granddaughter was
born at Windsor Castle. The chaplain of the Hessian court came to
England for the christening of the wee maiden. The usual number of
names was given her, but the first two were Victoria Alberta.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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