Great Britain -- History -- Victoria, 1837-1901 -- Fiction
"No," cried the little one. "She went right by the door."
Somehow word was carried to the Queen that a little girl who had been
terribly burned was crying to see her.
"Is there another ward that I have not visited?" she asked.
"Yes, Madam," answered the Doctor, "but it is at the extreme end of the
hospital."
"Never mind," replied the Queen. "I will go and see the child."
After this visit the little girl who had been so honored was the envy
of all the other children as she told over and over her story of the
royal visit. "She came down just to see me," said the little one, "the
Doctor told me she did. She put her hand right on my forehead and she
said, 'I have a little granddaughter about as old as you, and I hope
you will soon be able to run about as she does.' And then she said
'Good-by,' and she said, 'I shall come to see you again.' I wish she
would come to-morrow."
All her life Queen Victoria was fond of children. She liked even the
little boy who declared stoutly, "No, I don't like you because you cut
Mary Queen of Scots' head off." When she first became Queen, she always
managed to have some little folks staying in the palace as visitors,
and the ninth child of her own family was just as welcome as the first.
In all the displays that were made at her various receptions, she was
never more pleased than when throngs of children were gathered together
to greet her. She knew how to please children, and when she went to
visit a school for boys, she won their hearts by requesting the master
to give them an extra week's holiday. She never could bear to
disappoint a child. One day when she was driving very rapidly, she
caught sight of a little boy by the roadside looking much grieved
because he had tried to throw a bunch of flowers into her carriage, and
it had fallen into the road. "Drive back," she ordered, and the
carriage with its four horses and driver and attendants was turned
back. "Will you give me those pretty flowers?" she asked, and the
little boy with tears on his cheeks suddenly became the happiest little
fellow in the Highlands, as he shyly handed her the rather dusty
bouquet. The children of the Balmoral tenants knew that she would never
forget her promises, and if she said a toy was coming to them at
Christmas, it was as sure to come as the day itself. When the little
daughter of the minister in the village nearest to Balmoral was born,
the Queen asked that she might be named Alexandrina Victoria for
herself. Many gifts were sent to the little namesake, but perhaps the
one that pleased her most was the tall sugar ornament from the Queen's
birthday cake which the Queen herself brought over to the home of the
tiny damsel and presented to her.
Public-domain text, read in full here on John Shaqi.
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