“Thank you, sir,” she said, looking not at him but over his head as she left the room.

By Alice’s twentieth year, Mrs. Liddell was becoming anxious for her to choose a husband from among her many suitors.

“But I don’t feel anything for a single one of them,” Alice complained, shaking her head to fling out the unwanted memory of a boy left behind long ago. Don’t think of him! I mustn’t!

Then, one Saturday, the Liddell family attended an outdoor concert by a quartet at Christ Church Meadow. They were about to take their seats when a young gentleman, under the pretense of introducing himself to Dean Liddell, approached. He was Prince Leopold, Queen Victoria’s youngest son, and he

had been sent to Christ Church so that Dean Liddell might oversee his education. This was his first time meeting the family.

Mrs. Liddell became fidgety and excited as she was introduced.

“And these ladies,” said Dean Liddell, presenting his daughters, “are Edith, Lorina, and Alice. Girls, say hello to Prince Leopold.”

Alice held out her hand for the prince to kiss. He seemed reluctant to let it go.

“I’m afraid you can’t keep it, Your Highness,” she said. And when he didn’t understand: “My hand. I

may have use for it still.”

“Ah. Well, if I must return it to you, then I must, though if it ever needs safekeeping…” “I shall think of you, Your Highness.”

Prince Leopold insisted that the Liddells sit with him. He placed himself between Alice and Mrs. Liddell, and when the concert began with a Mozart medley, he leaned over and whispered in Alice’s ear, “I don’t fancy medleys. They skip lightly over so many works without delving thoroughly into any one of them.”

“There are quite a few people like that as well,” Alice whispered in return.

Mrs. Liddell, not hearing this exchange, flashed her daughter a look, which Alice was at a loss to interpret. The prince talked to her through the entire concert, discussing everything from art to politics.

He found Miss Liddell unlike other young women, who spoke of nothing but velvet draperies, wallpaper patterns, and the latest fashions, women who batted their eyelashes and expected him to swoon. Miss Liddell didn’t try to impress him-indeed, she gave the impression that she didn’t much care what he thought of her and he rather admired that. And her beauty…yes, her beauty was undeniable. All in all, he thought her a delectable puzzle of a creature.

No sooner was the concert over and Leopold gone than Mrs. Liddell voiced what she’d been trying to communicate to Alice with her eyes.

“He’s a prince! A prince! And he’s taken a fancy to you, I’m certain!”

“We were only talking, Mother. I talked to him as I would have talked to anyone.”

But her mother’s awe and enthusiasm were difficult to ignore, and she started running into Leopold all

over town. If she strolled through the Christ Church Picture Gallery, she found him gazing intently at an oil painting by one of the old masters. If she visited the Bodleian Library, she found him thumbing through a volume of Gibbon’s The History of the Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire (which she had read in its entirety).

He’s handsome enough, I suppose. And obviously well bred.

Yes, but so were many of the men who vied for her attention. At least he didn’t stroke his mustache with impatience as she talked of the need to provide for Britain’s poor.

“A nation should be judged on how it looks after its more unfortunate children,” she explained. “If Great Britain is truly to be the greatest kingdom in the world, it is not enough to flaunt our military power and our dominance in industry. We must lead by example and be more charitable to and protective of our own.”

Prince Leopold always listened to her judiciously, weighing her arguments and reasonings with seriousness. He never agreed or disagreed with her.

Mother may be right. I could certainly do worse than marry a prince. But although Alice tried to feel something for the man, her heart remained unconvinced.

Three months after the concert at Christ Church Meadow, while taking a ride in his carriage to Boar’s Hill, Prince Leopold said, “Your father tells me that you’ll be visiting the Banbury Orphanage tomorrow afternoon. I’d like to come along, if you’ll have me. One never knows what sort of troubles might beset a young woman there.”

“If you think it best, Your Highness.”

He offered to take her in the carriage, but Alice said that she’d prefer to walk.

“You see so much more of the town when you walk-a little curiosity shop or a snatch of garden where you wouldn’t think it possible to have a garden, choked as it is by city things. In a carriage, you hurry past these treasures without noticing them.”

She didn’t take the slightest quirk of mankind for granted, but viewed it as a small miracle and cause for celebration, and the prince had begun to love her for this.

At Banbury, the orphans crowded around Alice, hugging her skirts, all shouting at once. Alice laughed,

held four conversations simultaneously and, to Leopold’s eye, set off against the soot-stained walls, the drab and loose-hanging clothes of the orphans, and the pale, bloodless faces of the wardens, she looked more radiant than he’d ever seen her. On a tour of the orphanage, a train of children following at their heels, one young boy refused to let go of Alice’s left thumb.

Alice requested a thorough accounting of the troubles facing the Banbury Orphanage. The wardens pointed out floors rotten from overflowing sewage, the sagging infirmary roof, the time-worn mattresses as thin as wafers. They showed her the pantry, empty save for sacks of dried kidney beans and uncooked rice.

“The children have had nothing but beans and rice for two weeks,” one of the women told her. “We were supposed to be getting a supply of beef ribs, but so far…nothing. This sort of thing happens rather frequently, I’m afraid.”

Prince Leopold had been silent for some time. He cleared his throat. “What of the warden responsible for ensuring that Banbury receives the food and clothes the children need?”

“The chief warden is very selective as to who gets what and how much of it, Your Highness,” the warden explained. “He says we take in too many children and that perhaps they are not so deserving. For example, that one there”-the warden pointed at the boy holding on to Alice’s thumb-“he has a real talent for thieving, though often as not what he steals is food because of how hungry he is. They all are.” She gestured at the surrounding orphans.

Alice looked at the boy clutching her thumb, suddenly reminded of Quigly Gaffer. What’s become of him and the others? Andrew, Margaret, and Francine were hardly old enough to dress themselves, never mind living on the streets without the love and support of family.