Baby Betty

COMMONWEALTH (British Commonwealth of Nations)

A royal face, small, round and rosy, peeped from a window in the stern facade of Buckingham Palace one morning last week. Out the palace gate was clattering a coach of gilt and glass. Above it the three golden genii of England, Scotland and Ireland supported replicas of the Crown, the Sceptre, the Sword of State and the emblems of knighthood. Within the coach rode awfully the King-Emperor and the Queen-Empress. . . .

At them continued to peep their chubby infant granddaughter, Princess Elizabeth,* famed as "Baby Betty." A nurse held her up at the window of her nursery in Buckingham Palace, and she blinked sleepily, sucking her thumb.

What was gilt, what was Empire compared to a thumb so comfortingly succulent? Yet Their Majesties were riding out to open Parliament (see below).

When the Queen-Empress returned from this function she found Baby Betty in a teething fret, with Nurse Knight attempting to sooth her. Three days later the Princess cut her first tooth.

Britons know that it was Nurse Knight who gave to Baby Betty a close-fitting necklace of tiny coral beads. The hygienic feature of this necklace is that it is too short to be gotten up over the chin and into the mouth. "Nurse Knight necklaces," as worn by Baby Betty, have become the accepted adornment for occupants of the smart patent leather prams which parade daily in Hyde Park.

*Daughter of the Duke and Duchess of York, who left her at Buckingham Palace when they set sail for Australia (TIME, Jan. 17 et seq.) there to open the new Federal Capital, Canberra.