Had it not been for
help from her generous brother, Leopold, she could hardly have afforded
for her daughter the full and fitting education she received. So, had not
her taste and her sense of duty towards her child inclined her to a life
of quiet and retirement, the lack of fortune would have constrained her
to live simply and modestly. As it was, privacy was the rule in the life
of the accomplished Duchess, still young and beautiful, and in that of
her little shadow; very seldom did they appear at Court, or in any gay
Court circle; so, at the time of her accession to the throne, Victoria
might almost have been a fairy-princess, emerging from some enchanted
dell in Windsor forest, or a water-nymph evoked from the Serpentine in
Kensington Gardens by some modern Merlin, for all the world at large--the
world beyond her kingdom at least--knew of her young years, of her
character and disposition. Now few witnesses are left anywhere of her
fair happy childhood, or even of her girlhood, which was like a silvery
crescent, holding the dim promise of full-orbed womanhood and Queenhood.
As the Princess grew older, she found loving and helpful companionship in
her half-brother and sister, Prince Charles and the Princess Feodore of
Leiningen, the three children and their mother forming a close family
union, which years and separations and changes of fortune never
destroyed.
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