Illustrated with Special Photographs
taken by F. & R. Speaight.

Even in the days when the Queen's children formed a charming group of young people, high-spirited, intelligent, and enjoying, according to many passages in the late Princess Alice's letters, an ideally happy childhood, British Royal Nurseries were not better filled than they are at present, for in the immediate Court circle there are many young people, not one of whom can be considered in any sense grown up.

PRINCESS VICTORIA OF YORK, HIS SISTER.

Prince Arthur of Connaught and his two sisters form the eldest group, being severally fifteen, sixteen, and twelve. The three children of the Duke of Connaught, though they are half German, for their mother was the daughter of the Red Prince, have received an entirely English form of education, Prince Arthur having been the first British Prince sent to Eton, and the two Princesses, Margaret and Louise, being educated at home, partly under their parents and partly under the Queen's supervision, for during the Duke and Duchess' stay in India their children remained in England, and so their short lives have been divided between Aldershot, Bagshot Park, and Windsor Castle.

To the same group of the Queen's British grandchildren may be said to belong the children of the late Duke of Albany and of Princess Henry of Battenberg. In each case they are much younger than Her Majesty's other grandchildren.

There is something very pathetic in the position of the Duchess of Albany: left a widow within two years of her marriage, and obliged, by the circumstances of her position, to remain in a foreign country, finding her only solace and interest in her two children, to whom she has proved a model mother. Till last year, when the Prince entered Mr. Benson's popular house at Eton, Princess Alice and her young brother had never been separated for a single day. In this connection it may be stated that the Royal Princes when at school lead exactly the same lives as do other Eton boys. They are addressed by their masters and by their school-fellows as "Connaught" and "Albany," and though, as is natural, they generally spend any half-holidays at Windsor Castle, the Queen is most particular never to ask them out of hours, or to treat them in a way calculated to make them feel themselves favoured above the other boys.

[PRINCESS MARGARET OF CONNAUGHT].
[PRINCE ARTHUR OF CONNAUGHT.]
[LADIES ALEXANDRA AND MAUD DUFF.]
[PRINCESS LOUISE OF CONNAUGHT.]
[PRINCESS ALICE OF ALBANY.]
[THE DUKE OF ALBANY.]