The visits to Claremont--delicious little escapes into male society--came to an end when she was eleven years old and Prince Leopold left England to be King of the Belgians.

She loved him still; he was still "il mio secondo padre or, rather, solo padre, for he is indeed like my real father, as I have none;" but his fatherliness now came to her dimly and indirectly, through the cold channel of correspondence.
Henceforward female duty, female elegance, female enthusiasm, hemmed her completely in; and her spirit, amid the enclosing folds, was hardly reached by those two great influences, without which no growing life can truly prosper--humour and imagination.

The Baroness Lehzen--for she had been raised to that rank in the Hanoverian nobility by George IV before he died--was the real centre of the Princess's world.

When Feodora married, when Uncle Leopold went to Belgium, the Baroness was left without a competitor.

The Princess gave her mother her dutiful regards; but Lehzen had her heart.