STORIES OF OUR FUTURE QUEEN.

New Zealand Herald, Volume XXXVI, Issue 11200, 21 October 1899, Page 4 (Supplement)

STORIES OF OUR FUTURE QUEEN.

Tits girlhood of the Duchess of York is sketched by "Sybil" in the Girl's Realm for August. Photographs are given of the Princess at different ages, and several interesting incidents are told. Of her personal tastes, we are informed that "blue is par excellence her favourite colour, and next in favour come bright shades of mauve and heliotrope. Turquoises are her favourite stones, and she has inherited her grandmother, the Duchess of Cambridge's love for wearing beautiful jewels." More serious pursuits, however, are mentioned. "Each year she set apart a portion of money" out of her " none too plentiful dress allowance" for charity, and, "what was better still, she gave her own time and thought to help the poor and afflicted." She "invariably purchased goods of British and Irish manufacture," and she " only dealt with those firms who, she had ascertained, treated their employees fairly," TIIE RHYME OF THE DUCHESS MAY. Possibly many will be surprised to learn that the aspirations of this Royal heart have broken into verse; but such is the case, and the sentiment is certainly unimpeachable. The writer avers: — " She followed, with the greatest interest, the investigations made by the Government into the Sweating system, and the plans being formulated for the Better Housing of the Poor, and would discuss these questions with her mother's visitors with great earnestness. Princess May was a girl who was not content with merely doing kind and pretty things, but she liked to get at the why and wherefore of the poverty and misery with which this favoured England of ours abounds. lam sure you will be interested to read some lines which she wrote as a girl, and which express her sentiments of patriotism; — If each man in his measure Would do a brother's part, To oast a ray of sunlightInto a brother's heart, How changed would bo our country, How changed would bo our poor! And then might Merrio England Deserve her name once more. Such is " the Rhyme of the Duchess May," not the " Rhyme" by Mrs, Browning of that title, but the work of the real Duchess. MAKING TEA FOR THE SERVANTS. " Sybil" goes on to tell how the Duchess and her mother used to supply every year the old women from the Royal Cambridge Asylum 'for Soldiers' Widows with vegetables from the gardens of White Lodge. The vegetables were given by the Royal hands with much Royal banter. Here is an incident which King Demos may remember hereafter of the wife of his titular sovereign:— "Not far from White Lodge the Duchess of Teck had a Training Home for Servants, and- there she aqd Princess May often went to make little jollifications for the girls. On ,one occasion they went unexpectedly, and the Duchess of Teck, going down the staircase to the kitchen, said, 'Follow me, May, and we will go and give the girls their tea.' You may imagine the l astonishment of the girls when the Duchess appeared, and, seating herself on an ordinary kitchen - chair, began to pour out the tea, while Princess May handed it round. There were some clothes'lines across the kitchen, and, Princess May beinp tall, her hat caught in the ropes as she- was hurrying about, but the incident . only , served to give occasion for more fun by the manner- in which the Duchess ban tered her daughter over being caught in the clothes' line.."