waiting." And this was the same little girl who, six years before, had
bought her own straw hat and carried it home in her hand! I wonder if her
own mother did not at that moment have difficulty in believing that
radiant and royal creature was indeed her little Victoria!

The account continues: "Her Majesty, on taking her seat, appeared to be
deeply moved at the novel and important position in which she was placed,
the eyes of the assembled nobility, both male and female, being riveted
on her person." I would have wagered a good deal that it was the 'female'
eyes that she felt most piercingly. Then it goes on: "Her emotion was
plainly discernible in the heavings of her bosom, and the brilliancy of
her diamond stomacher, which sparkled out like the sun on the swell of
the ocean as the billows rise and fall." So disconcerted was she, it
seems, by all this silent, intense observation, that she forgot, nicely
seated as she was, that all those Peers and Peeresses were standing, till
she was reminded of it by Lord Melbourne, who stood close at her side.
Then she graciously inclined her head, and said in rather a low tone, 'My
Lords, be seated!' and they sat, and eke their wives and daughters.

"She had regained her self-possession when she came to read her speech,
and her voice also, for it was heard all over the great chamber." And it
is added: "Her demeanor was characterized by much grace and modest self-
possession."

Among the spectators of this rare royal pageant was an American, and a
stiff republican, a young man from Boston, called Charles Sumner. He was
a scholar, and scholar-like, undazzled by diamonds, admired most Her
Majesty's reading. In a letter to a friend he wrote: "I was astonished
and delighted. Her voice is sweet and finely modulated, and she
pronounced every word distinctly, and with a just regard to its meaning.