In the Palace itself the state apartments are now open to the public every day of the week except Wednesdays. This admittance was granted by Queen Victoria in commemoration of her eightieth year. Previously to this time the Palace had been allowed to fall into decay, and it needed a large grant from Parliament to put it into repair again. The state rooms, which are on the second floor, are well worth a visit, and the names of each, such as "Queen Mary's Gallery," "Queen Caroline's Drawing-room," and "King's Privy Chamber," are above the doors, as at Hampton Court. These rooms are nearly all liberally supplied with pictures, many of which were restored from Hampton Court after having been previously taken there. We see here the winsome face of the poor little Duke of Gloucester (p. 72), handsome Queen Caroline, sardonic William, and the family group of the children of Frederick, Prince of Wales. The selection has been made with judgment, and every picture speaks to us of the reigns most closely connected with the Palace. It is well to note the view eastward from the King's Drawing-room, which comes as a surprise. The outlook is over the Round Pond and down a vista of trees to the Serpentine, and gives a surprising effect of distance. The rooms that will always attract most attention, however, are those which were occupied by Queen Victoria as a child. When the Duke and Duchess of Kent came to Kensington Palace seven months after their marriage, the fact that a child of theirs might occupy the English throne was a possibility, but a remote one. George III. was then on the throne; the daughter and only child of his eldest son, Princess Charlotte, had died a year previously, and it was natural that after this event the succession should be considered in a new light. The next son, William, Duke of Clarence, had carried on a lifelong connection with Mrs. Jordan, by whom he had ten children, and when the death of his elder brother's only child made him heir to the throne, it was necessary for him to contract a more suitable alliance, so with great reluctance he married Adelaide, daughter of the Duke of Saxe-Coburg Meiningen, in 1818. Frederick, Duke of York, the next in age, had been married for many years, but his union had proved childless. He is the Duke commemorated in the column in Waterloo Place, and also in the soldier-boys' school at Chelsea. Therefore the birth of a daughter to the Duke of Kent, the fourth son, at Kensington Palace on May 24, 1819, was an event of no small importance. The room in which the Princess was born was one on the first floor, just below the King's Privy Chamber, and it is marked by a brass plate. This is not among the state apartments shown to the public, but the little room called the Nursery, in which the young Princess played, and her small bedroom adjoining, lie in the regular circuit made by visitors through the rooms.