women--and her fascinating combination of gentleness with gaiety, not only won and bound, by daily increasing ties, the affections of her husband, but of all those who had the good fortune to become personally acquainted with her admirable life and disposition. CHAPTER IV. FIRST YEARS OF CHILDHOOD. Old Memories of Kensington Palace--Enlargements of the Structure by William III., Anne, Queen Caroline, and the Duke of Sussex--Maids of Honour--Rank and Beauty in the Gardens--Wilberforce and the Infant Princess--Victoria at Ramsgate--A Picture of Victoria when Five Years old--Her Physical Training--Popularity as a Child--Her Youthful Charities--A Narrow Escape from Death--Early Development of Quick Intelligence--Anecdotes--Love of Nature--Proneness to Self-will--But Counterbalanced by Candour--Waggishness--A Portrait of the Child-Princess by Leigh Hunt. The infancy, girlhood, and budding womanhood of the Princess Victoria were chiefly spent at the Royal Palace of Kensington. It was her mother's fixed residence, but the family were much at Claremont, where the Queen testifies that she spent the happiest days of her childhood. There were frequent trips made, too, to various watering-places; and, as the Princess grew in years, visits were paid at the country houses of some of the nobility. Leigh Hunt, in his exquisite book of gossip entitled "The Old Court Suburb," thus happily describes the more salient and prominent features of the somewhat sombre region of the Queen's up-bringing:--