Ah, why _green_, O Queen? Later that afternoon he saw her again, going at
a slower rate, holding up that green parasol, bowing right and left and
smiling, as the crowd saluted and cheered. The Queen does not bow and
smile so much nowadays, but then she no longer carries a green parasol.

N. P. Willis also saw the young sovereign at the opera, and dashes off a
poet's vivid sketch of her:

"In her box to the left of me sat the Queen, keeping time with her fan to
the singing of Pauline Garcia, her favorite Minister, Lord Melbourne,
standing behind her chair, and her maids of honor grouped around her--
herself the youthful, smiling, admired sovereign of the most powerful
nation on earth. The Queen's face has thinned and grown more oval since I
saw her four years ago as the Princess Victoria. She has been compelled
to think since then, and such exigencies in all stations in life work out
the expression of the face. She has now what I should pronounce a
decidedly intellectual countenance, a little petulant withal when she
turns to speak, but on the whole quite beautiful enough for a virgin
Queen. She was dressed less gaily than many others around her."

I have given much space to these personal descriptions of Queen Victoria
as she appeared in those first two years of her Queenhood, because they
are still to the world--the world of young people, at least--the most
interesting years of all her glorious reign. There was great poetry about
that time, and, it must be confessed, some peril.

Mrs. Oliphant, in her excellent little life of the Queen, says: "The
immediate circle of friends around the young sovereign fed her with no
flatteries."