The room in which her first Council took place is below the Cube Room. No wonder that Queen Victoria had always a tender memory of Kensington Palace. Her favourite daughter, Princess Beatrice of Battenberg, occupies a suite of rooms at the Palace, besides Princess Louise, Duchess of Argyll; and there are several other occupants--widows, retired army men, and those who have some claim on the private generosity of the Crown--who live here in sets of apartments, in the same way as others live at Hampton Court. The somewhat untidy forcing-beds which now stand in the immediate proximity to the Palace, and which supply the royal parks, are shortly to be cleared away--a decided improvement. Queen Victoria's connection with Kensington did not cease at her accession. At Prince Albert's suggestion a great Exhibition was held in 1851, and the huge palace of glass and iron, which was to house it, sprang up in the Gardens at the spot where the Albert Memorial now stands. Foreigners from all parts of the world visited the Exhibition, and the buildings were crowded. Very different was that crowd from that which had promenaded in the Gardens in the reigns of the Georges. Women wore coalscuttle bonnets and three-cornered shawls, with the points hanging down in the centre of their backs, and crinolines that gave them the appearance of inverted tops. Their beauty must have been very potent to shine through such a disguise! The profits of the Exhibition amounted to L150,000, which was invested in land in South Kensington. The Crystal Palace exactly suited the taste of the age, and when it had fulfilled the function for which it was primarily intended, the difficulty was to know what to do with it; it was not possible to leave it in the Gardens, so it was finally transported to Sydenham, where it still annually delights thousands. The Albert Memorial took twenty years to complete, and cost more than L130,000. The four groups representing the continents of the world are fine both in execution and idea, also the bas-reliefs, in which every figure depicts some real person, and the smaller groups of Commerce, Manufactures, Agriculture, and Engineering. As much, unfortunately, cannot be said for the tawdry statue in its canopy.