I am told by a Yorkshire lady another story of the Princess, of not quite
so serious a character. She was visiting with her mother, of course, at
Wentworth House, the seat of Earl Fitzwilliam in Yorkshire, and while at
that pleasant place delighted in running about by herself in the gardens
and shrubberies. One wet morning, soon after her arrival, she was thus
disporting herself, flitting from point to point, light-hearted and
light-footed, when the old gardener, who did not then know her, seeing
her about to descend a treacherous bit of ground from the terrace, called
out, "Be careful, Miss; it's slape!"--a Yorkshire word for slippery. The
incautious, but ever-curious Princess, turning her head, asked, "What's
slape?" and the same instant her feet flew from under her, and she came
down. The old gardener ran to lift her, saying, as he did so,
"_That's_ slape, Miss."
There is nothing remarkable, much less incredible, in these stories of
the young Victoria, nor in the one related by her music-teacher, of how
she once rebelled against so much practice, and how, on his telling her
that there was no "royal road" in art, and that only by much practice
could she become "mistress of the piano," she closed and locked the
obnoxious instrument and put the key in her pocket, saying playfully,
"Now you see there _is_ a royal way of becoming `mistress of the
piano.
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