people half wild with loyal excitement, shouting and waving hats and
handkerchiefs. It may have been on this day that Lord Albemarle got off
his famous pun. On the Queen saying to him, "I wonder if my good people
of London are as glad to see me as I am to see them?" he replied by
pointing to the letters "V. R." "Your Majesty can see their loyal cockney
answer-'_Ve are_.'"

One account states that, "the young sovereign was quite overcome by the
enthusiastic outbursts of loyalty which greeted her all along the route,"
but a description of the scene sent me by a friend, Mrs. Newton Crosland,
the charming English novelist and poet, paints her as perfectly composed.
My friend says: "I well remember seeing the young Queen on her way to
dine with the Lord Mayor, on the 9th of November, 1837, the year of her
accession. The crowd was so great that there were constant stoppages,
and, luckily for me, one of them occurred just under the window of a
house in the Strand, where I was a spectator. I shall never forget the
appearance of the maiden-sovereign. Youthful as she was, she looked every
inch a Queen. Seated with their backs to the horses were a lady and
gentleman, in full Court-dress--(the Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of
the Robes--and the Earl of Albemarle, Master of the Horse), and in the
centre of the opposite seat, a little raised, was the Queen. All I saw of
her dress was a mass of pink satin and swan's-down. I think she wore a
large cape or wrap of these materials. The swan's-down encircled her
throat, from which rose the fair young face--the blue eyes beaming with
goodness and intelligence--the rose-bloom of girlhood on her cheeks, and
her soft, light brown hair, on which gleamed a circlet of diamonds,
braided as it is seen in the early portraits. Her small, white-gloved
hands were reposing easily in her lap.

"On this occasion not only were the streets thronged, but every window in