P'incess Is Three

If Death should come soon and suddenly to three men--George V. Edward of Wales, the Duke of York--England would have another Virgin Queen Elizabeth. Last week, romping in a yellow frock, the Princess Elizabeth passed her third birthday. She does not know that she is but three removes from the Throne; in fact she has only very recently discovered that she is a "P'incess." It is barely a fortnight ago that she knocked with chubby fist upon a door, and when her mother called "Who's there?" answered in an important little voice, "Lilybet, the P'incess." "Lilybet's" mother, Her Royal Highness the Duchess of York, is herself only two removes from becoming "Queen Elizabeth"--which title is constantly and teasingly applied to her by Edward of Wales. She would be less than human if she did not sometimes wonder how much truth there is in the story that he once said he would renounce his rights upon the death of George V--which would make her nickname come true. If there is a woman in England who can remain unperturbed by the teasing of Edward of Wales it is certainly the fresh, buxom, altogether "jolly" little Duchess, but with a Throne in the balance it must be a trifle nerve-wracking to be called "Queen Elizabeth" by a man who can make you that. Like a sensible mother, the Duchess took her daughter into the country for the birthday party. "Are we going to G'annie's or G'anma's?" the baby Princess asked, and the Duchess smiled, "To G'annie's, dear." This was important. Her Majesty the Queen and Empress Mary is "G'anma." "G'annie" is the Countess of Strathmore. The particular one of "G'annie's" estates to which they were going was St. Paul's, Waldenbury, Hertfordshire; a vast, yet cosy rose-brick house in which the Duchess of York was born Aug. 4, 1900. It would have been altogether unsuitable to have gone for a birthday party to "G'anpa and G'annie's" dour, ancestral Glamis Castle in Scotland, according to legend the very same in which, as Shakespeare has told, Macbeth did murder Duncan. Presents for their daughter are more of a problem to the Duke & Duchess of York than to the parents of most three-year-olds. For example, on their tour of Australia (TIME, Jan. 17, et seq.) they were obliged to accept and bring home "for Baby Betty" no less than three tons of toys and precisely 20 fine squawking parrots. The Duchess cannot appear at a bazaar, lay a cornerstone, or address the Girl Guides (of which she is one) without having pressed upon her--"for Baby Betty, the darling!"--everything from four-leaf clovers offered by grubby children to the historic lace diaper presented by a beaming Irish woman with a shawl over her head. An efficient staff was busy all last week dealing with birthday presents; but to find out which of the vast collection ever reached the "P'incess" would be like probing a state secret. Two sure bets: the mechanical monkey sent by Queen Mary, the Cairn terrier pup from Edward of Wales. Even in the U. S. there are babes who ape the styles set by "Baby Betty." Several smart Manhattan stores offer imported "Princess Elizabeth prams" (perambulators) at $250 each. Yellow, however, is the "P'incess's" real achievement, or rather her mother's. The test was made last week of strolling into H. Gordon Selfridge's famed "First in London" department store, and asking a salesperson at the baby counter about yellow.

"Now two years ago, mind you," said the salesperson, "if anyone wanted yellow things for a baby we should have had to order them specially. Pink or blue or white were the colors then. Now every mother, almost, wants to buy a little yellow frock or a primrose bonnet like Princess Elizabeth's."