In this too stormy atmosphere the heiress of England was reared. Her naturally happy disposition and healthy physical constitution carried her through with less disadvantage than other less happily endowed natures would have sustained. Among other relatives who were uniformly kind and considerate to the young Princess special mention should be made of the Duke of York, whom she loved like a second father. His death, in 1827, was her first real sorrow as a child. Queen Adelaide also was uniformly kind and loving to her niece. Her own two baby girls had died in their infancy, and she transferred a good deal of motherly tenderness to Princess Victoria. A meaner nature would have resented the place of her own child being filled by another; but Queen Adelaide showed none of this littleness, and welcomed her niece with cordiality to her rightful place beside the throne. When the second of Queen Adelaide’s own little girls died, she wrote to the Duchess of Kent, “My children are dead, but yours lives, and she is mine, too!” The simple words give the note of a truly noble nature. In 1831, when King William prorogued his first Parliament, Queen Adelaide and Princess Victoria watched from the windows of the Palace the progress of the Royal procession. “The people cheered the Queen lustily, but, forgetting herself, that gracious lady took the young Princess Victoria by the hand, led her to the front of the balcony, and introduced her to the happy and loyal multitude.”[4] On several other occasions Queen Adelaide showed a noble, queenly, and motherly spirit towards the young Princess. In 1837 and onwards, Queen Victoria was able, by a number of little nameless acts of kindness and of love, to cheer and soothe the declining years of the Queen Dowager. [1] The Duke of Kent was chiefly known in the army for his extreme insistence in military etiquette, discipline, dress, and equipments. He was, however, the first to abandon flogging, and to establish a regimental school.--_Dictionary of National Biography._ [2] In reminiscences contributed by the King of the Belgians, as an appendix to “Early Years of the Prince Consort,” it is stated that the Duke’s fatal cold was caught when visiting Salisbury Cathedral. [3] It should be remarked that whatever the faults and shortcomings of William IV. may have been, the Queen herself never refers to him but in terms of affection and gratitude. [4] G. Barnett Smith, “Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria.” CHAPTER II. CHILDHOOD AND EDUCATION.