Miss Lehzen, or Baroness Lehzen, for King George had made her a German baroness, was a finely educated woman, the daughter of a German clergyman. She had come to England with the Duchess of Kent as governess to the Princess Féodore, and she had performed her duties so satisfactorily that the Duchess was glad to be able to place the Princess Victoria in her charge. She was a woman of keen, sagacious judgment, with the ability to see everything that was going on about her, and not at all afraid to express her opinions. One day when an aide-de-camp of one of the royal dukes was presented to her, she greeted him with the frank speech: "I can see that you are not a fop or a dandy, as most of your Guardsmen are." She was severe in her manner, but her bluntest speeches were made with such a friendly glance of her shrewd and kindly eyes that most people who met her became, like the aide-de-camp, her loyal friends. Many years later her former pupil said of her: "I adored her, though I was greatly in awe of her. She really seemed to have no thought but for me."
The education of the schoolgirl Princess went on in much the same way as during the previous years. Her study hours were observed with such strictness that even when a favored guest at Kensington was about to take his departure, she was not allowed to leave her work for a moment to say good-by. Occasionally, however, an interruption came, and three months before she was twelve years of age the books had to be closed for one day that she might make her first appearance at Queen Adelaide's drawing room. She wore a white dress, hardly more elaborate than her ordinary gowns, but a diamond ornament was in her hair, and around her neck was a string of pearls. She stood beside the Queen, and although the ceremonies were almost as unwonted to her as they would have been to any other child of her age, she did not appear embarrassed, but seemed to enjoy her new experience. Baroness Lehzen wrote a letter to a friend about this time describing the little girl. She said:
"My Princess will be twelve years old to-morrow. She is not tall, but very pretty; has dark blue eyes, and a mouth which, though not tiny, is very good-tempered and pleasant; very fine teeth, a small but graceful figure, and a very small foot. Her whole bearing is so childish and engaging that one could not desire a more amiable child." The Baroness seems to have just returned from some absence when she wrote the letter, for she adds, "She was dressed to receive me in white muslin, with a coral necklace."