JOIN USIt's a D! As Britain waits with bated breath for a new entrant into the Royal family, Kate Middleton made a rare slip of tongue that suggested the unborn baby is a girl.
After being given a teddy bear as a gift on a visit to Grimsby, the Duchess of Cambridge said, "Thank you, I'll take that for my d ...", she stopped herself before going any further, but when a well-wisher asked if she was in the process of saying "daughter" she replied, "We're not telling".
The Duchess, who is due to give birth in July, also claimed not to know the sex of her baby, who will one day be monarch, but her comment will be seized upon by royal watchers the world over who are eager for any clues about whether she is expecting a boy or a girl.
Precedent dictates that the sex of royal babies is never announced in advance, The Telegraph reported.
31-year-old Duchess also said that her baby had been kicking "very much" and joked to a fan that she might have to wait a long time before she is queen.
On only her third day of official engagements this year, the Duchess visited the National Fishing Heritage Centre in the Lincolnshire port, where she went on a walkabout among the 2,000-strong crowd who had waited up to six hours in freezing fog for her arrival.
Diana Burton, handed the Duchess a white teddy bear, which the Duchess accepted with a smile.
Sandra Cook, 67, who was next to her in the crowd, said, "I distinctly heard her say 'thank you, I'll take that for my d ...' then she stopped herself. I said to her, 'You were going to say daughter weren't you?' and she said 'No, we don't know'".
"I said 'Oh I think you do', to which she said, 'We're not telling'."
Bobbie Brown, a Sainsbury's shop worker who was also in the crowd, said, "I asked her if the baby had been moving or kicking and she said 'Yes it is, very much so'".
The Duchess, whose pregnancy bump was covered by a favourite brown Hobbs coat and a Great Plains dress, later visited a fire station in Grimsby.
"I'm waiting for you to be Queen," an old lady told Kate, to which the Duchess replied, "You might be waiting a long time!"