The first Drawing-room which the Princess attended was one given in honor of Her Majesty's birthday. She went with her mother and a suite of ladies and gentlemen in State carriages, escorted by a party of Life Guards. The Princess was on that occasion dressed entirely in materials of British manufacture, her frock being of English blonde, very simple and becoming. She stood at the left of her aunt, the Queen, and watched the splendid ceremony with great interest, while everybody watched her with greater interest. But if the presence of the "heir-presumptive to the throne" created a sensation at the Queen's Drawing-room, her absence from the King's coronation created more. Some said it was because a proper place in the procession--one next to the King and Queen--had not been assigned to her; others, that the Duchess had kept her away on account of her delicate health, and nobody knew exactly the truth of the matter. Perhaps the great state secret will be revealed some day with the identity of "Junius" and the "Man in the Iron Mask." CHAPTER V. King William jealous of Public Honors to Victoria--Anecdote--The unusual Studies of the Princess--Her Visits to the Isle of Wight--Laughable Incident at Wentworth House--Anecdote related by her Music-teacher-- Unwholesome adulation of the Princess--Reflections upon the curious isolation of her Social Position--Extract from one of her later Letters. The indifference of the Duchess of Kent to the heavy pomps and heavier gayeties of his Court so offended his unmajestic Majesty, that he finally became decidedly inimical to the Duchess. Though he insisted on seeing the little Princess often, he did not like the English people to see too much of her, or to pay her and her mother too much honor. He objected to their little journeys, calling them "royal progresses," and by a special order put a stop to the "poppings," in the way of salutes, to the vessel which bore them to and from the Isle of Wight--a small piece of state- business for a King and his Council to be engaged in. The King's unpopular brother, the Duke of Cumberland, was also supposed to be unfriendly to the widow of a brother whom he had not loved, and to the child whom, according to that brother, he regarded from the first as an "intruder," and who certainly at the last, stood between His Royal Grossness and the throne--the throne which would have gone down under him. Yet, in spite of enmity and opposition from high quarters, and jealousy and harsh criticism from Court ministers and minions, the Duchess of Kent, who seems to have been a woman of immense firmness and resolution, kept on her way, rearing her daughter as she thought best, coming and going as she felt inclined.