From 8-year old Hilda’s diary:
Today Miss Hare told us a story about Queen Victoria. She was Queen of England, once upon a time, and she was a good woman as well as a good Queen. She loved her husband very much, and so she made sort of a law that all women should love their husbands too and if they didn’t and they were mean to them or ran away from them, they couldn’t come to her parties at the palace. Queen Victoria’s husband’s name was Prince Albert. I think he was named after the kind of suits that Aunt Tillie’s and Suzanne’s friends wore to the ballet. He was German but he spoke English too. I raised my hand and asked if he could speak good English and Miss Hare said that he could, he could speak as well as we can. The story I like best is about Queen Victoria, about her beautiful manners. One day she had some ladies to tea, and one of these ladies didn’t have pretty manners and she poured the tea into her saucer and drank it that way. All the other ladies were shocked and made faces at each other but guess what Queen Victoria did? Right in front of all those ladies she poured her own tea into her saucer and drank it that way too. Miss Hare told us that the moral of that story is that we should always do everything a guest does so the guest will feel comfortable.
Hilda writes about Queen Victoria reigning “once upon a time.” Prince Albert died in 1861 and Queen Victoria in 1901 — perhaps ancient history to Hilda but actually quite recent. Although Hilda thinks that Prince Albert was named after a suit, in reality a style of frock coat was named for him.