husband to guide and support her. This the Queen can state from painful
experience, and she thanks God that none of her dear daughters are exposed
to such danger."

The King of the Belgians sought to abridge the period of probation by
renewing the project of the worthy marriage to which his niece had been
well inclined two years before. But either from the natural coyness and
the strain of perversity which are the privilege and the danger of
girlhood, or simply because, as she has, stated, "the sudden change from
the secluded life at Kensington to the independence of her position as
Queen Regnant, at the age of eighteen, put all ideas of marriage out of her
head," the bride in prospect demurred. She declared, with the unhesitating
decision of her age, that she had no thought of marriage for years to come.
She objected, with some show of reason, that both she and Prince Albert
were too young, and that it would be better for him to have a little more
time to perfect his English education.

The princely cousin who had won her first girlish affections, and the
tender sweetness of love in the bud, were by no means forgotten. The idea
of marriage never crossed the Queen's mind without his image presenting
itself, she has said, and she never thought of herself as wedded to any
other man. But every woman, be she Queen or beggar-maid, craves to exercise
one species of power at one era of her life. It is her prerogative, and
though the ruth of love may live to regret it, and to grudge every passing
pang inflicted, half wilfully half unwittingly, on the true heart, it may
be questioned whether love would flourish better, whether it would attain
its perfect stature, without the test of the brief check and combat for
mastery.

But if a woman desires to prove her power, a man cannot be expected to