ar to the Nursery in the Palace is
that which Princess Victoria occupied during all her happy childhood,
and it was here that she was awakened to meet the Archbishop and
Minister who brought her the news that her great inheritance had come
upon her. The death of the Duke of York had already cleared the way to
the throne, and as the years went by and the Duke of Clarence had no
more children, it was seen that the little girl who played at Kensington
must, if she lived, be Queen of England. When George IV. died, when she
was eleven years old, her prospects were assured, and since that time
she had been prepared for her future position. William IV.'s short reign
of only seven years seated her on the throne when she had just passed
her eighteenth year. The account of her being awakened in the early
morning by messengers bearing a message of such tremendous import, her
hasty rising, and stepping through into the Long Gallery with her hair
falling over her shoulders, and only a shawl thrown around her, is well
known to everyone.

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