asserts she insisted on keeping all, _inter alias_ the Marchioness of
Normanby. There never was such excitement in London. I came with hundreds
of others to the House of Lords, which met to-day, in the expectation that
something would be said, but all passing off in silence." [Footnote: The
explanation was made later.]

"Brooks's, Saturday, May 11, 1839. The Cabinet is still sitting, and we
know nothing more to-day.... I was several hours at the Queen's ball last
night, a scene never to be forgotten. The Queen was in great spirits, and
danced with more than usual gaiety. She received Peel with great civility;
but after dancing with the Russian Bear, took for her partner Lady
Normanby's son. The Tories looked inconceivably foolish--such whimsical
groups."

Calm onlookers, including Stockmar, condemned Lord Melbourne for the
position, in which he had allowed the young Queen to be placed, and
considered that he had brought discredit on his Government by the
circumstances in which he and his colleagues had resumed office. The
melancholy death of Lady Flora Hastings following on this overthrow of the
ordinary arrangements, intensified the wrath of the Tories, and helped to
arouse a sense of general dissatisfaction and doubt.

In the month of July, 1839, an Act of Parliament was passed which was of
great consequence to the mass of the people. In 1837 Sir Rowland Hill
published his post-office reform pamphlet, and in 1839 the penny-post
scheme was embodied in an Act of Parliament.

What stories clustered round the early miniature "heads" of her Majesty in
the little dull red stamp! These myths ranged from the panic that the
adhesive gum caused cancer in the tongue, to the romance that a desperate