QUEEN WHO LOVES BABIES

New Zealand Times, Volume XXXII, Issue 7020, 7 January 1910, Page 8

QUEEN WHO LOVES BABIES

Queen Helena, of Italy (says the Rome correspondent of the "New York World"), who has infused more vigorous blood into the veins of the ancient House of Savoy, has become one of the most devoted and domesticated of all the royal wives and mothers. She is so fond not only of her own, but of all' children, that she earned the title "the Children's Queen." Conversing .with the wife of a distinguished Ambassador about her reception by the Queen, the correspondent asked: "Pray, tell me what did her Majesty talk about?" "About babies all the time," answered the great lady, pouting, for she is much more interested in fashions and politics than in babies. Queen Helena has set an example to all mothers, princesses or peasants, by nursing her babies., When her first baby, the little Princess Yolanda, was born, her Majesty was much criticised by the grandes dames of the court for her objection to some of the old Italian customs in connection with Royal nurseries. One- of these customs was to bind up the Eoyal infants in , very tight swaddling-clothes. Queen Helena quickly did away with these with the remark:— ' ■ :

"Babies' legs are made to kick'with 1 , and my baby shall be free to kick." Her Majesty is never so happy as when getting up an entertainment for poor boys and girls, or visiting, some orphanage or creche which her own beneficence has helped to establish. Beatrice Merzano, a poor little : child of TJdine, wrote plaintively to the Queen not long ago:— "I have no dolb like other little girls. I have become naughty. My papa scolds me ' because I '■. talk always of dolls. I dream of dolls." .

Touched "by the simplicity of the childish letter, the Queen sent Beatrice a doll so fine that all TJdine went to admire. ■'■.'.

The patrician Duchess of Aosta has called the Queen "My cousin the shepherdess." - This sneer was uttered because, thanks to her early life in Montenegro, her Majesty knows how to cook and. to sew; she even can milk a cow.

She dresses plainly, and wore a violet coloured dress so often that a lady of her court • was bold enough to say:— "Your Majesty seems to be very fond of that gown." "I like it because the King prefers it," answered her Maj esty, simply. "Why should I change it?" But she is a woman of high spirit. When she-first came to Italy the proud Duchesses, forgetting she had made her debut'in the crreat world under the loving auspices of the Czarina, laughed at her "Montenegrin primitiveness." : One said to her, with half-veiled irony:— "Your Eoyal Highness must find our unaccustomed Court ceremony very dious.'i "Not at all." retorted the Princess. "They always did these thincs on a much greater and more ceremonious scale in St. Petersburg."