Of the Queen’s personal appearance as a child and young woman we have many contemporary records. Some of these speak in enthusiastic terms of her extreme loveliness as a child. One lady writes of a recent visit to the widowed Duchess: “The child is so noble and magnificent a creature that one cannot help feeling an inward conviction that she is to be Queen some day or other.” Other writers speak of her lovely complexion, fair hair, and large expressive eyes. Greville is less complimentary; but he was writing of a later period. Speaking of a child’s ball given at Court for the little Queen of Portugal in 1829, he says: “It was pretty enough, and I saw for the first time ... our little Victoria.... Our little Princess is a short, plain-looking child, and not near so good-looking as the Portuguese.” It was when this ball was first talked of that Lady Maria Conyngham gave dire offence to George IV. by saying, “Do give it, sir; it will be so nice to see the _two little_ Queens dancing together.” There is no necessary inconsistency in these different accounts of Princess Victoria’s appearance. It is possible that a lovely infant may have become a plain child at ten years old. Of her appearance as she approached womanhood, Mr. N. P. Willis, an American, writing in 1835, describing his visit to Ascot, says: “In one of the intervals I walked under the King’s stand, and saw Her Majesty the Queen (Adelaide) and the young Princess Victoria very distinctly. They were leaning over the railing, listening to a ballad-singer, and seeming to be as much interested and amused as any simple country folk would be.... The Princess is much better looking than any picture of her in the shops, and for the heir to such a crown as that of England, quite unnecessarily pretty and interesting.” [Illustration: Victoria Aug: 10th 1835.] Carlyle, in a private letter to his brother (April, 1838), gave a vivid picture of the girl-Queen as he saw her then:-- “Going through the Green Park yesterday, I saw her little Majesty taking her ... departure for Windsor. I had seen her another day at Hyde Park Corner coming in from the daily ride. She is decidedly a pretty-looking little creature: health, clearness, graceful timidity, looking out from her young face, ‘frail cockle on the black bottomless deluges.’ One could not help some interest in her, situated as mortal seldom was.” Writing of a later period, Baroness Bunsen, describing the scene in the House of Lords at the opening of Parliament in 1842, says:--