'I am quite clear that children should be taught to have great reverence for God and for religion, but that they should have the feeling of devotion and love which our Heavenly Father encourages His earthly children to have for Him, and not one of fear and trembling; and that the thoughts of death and an after-life should not be presented in an alarming and forbidding view; and that they should be made to know, _as yet_, no difference of creeds.' Court gossips considered the Queen 'to be very fond of her children, but severe in her manner, and a strict disciplinarian in her family.' A nurse in the royal household informed Baron Bunsen that 'the children were kept very plain indeed: it was quite poor living--only a bit of roast meat, and perhaps a plain pudding.' Other servants have reported that the Queen would have made 'an admirable poor man's wife.' We used to hear how the young princesses had to smooth out and roll up their bonnet strings. By these trifling side-lights we discern a vigorous, wholesome discipline, striving to counteract the enervating influences of rank and power, and their attendant flattery and self-indulgence. 'One of the main principles observed in the education of the royal children was this--that though they received the best training of body and mind to fit them for the high position they would eventually have to fill, they should in no wise come in contact with the actual court life. The children were scarcely known to the Queen's ladies-in-waiting, as they only now and then made their appearance for a moment after dinner at dessert, or accompanied their parents out driving. The care of them was exclusively intrusted to persons who possessed the Queen and Prince-Consort's entire confidence, and with whom they could at all times communicate direct.' An artist employed to decorate the pavilion in the garden of Buckingham Palace, wrote of Her Majesty and the prince: 'In many things they are an example to the age. They have breakfasted, heard morning prayers with the household in the private chapel, and are out some distance from the palace talking to us in the summer-house before half-past nine o'clock--sometimes earlier. After the public duties of the day and before their dinner, they come out again evidently delighted to get away from the bustle of the world to enjoy each other's society in the solitude of the garden.' [Illustration: Osborne House.(From a Photograph by Frith.)]