sitting all alone in her room, silent and sad, has touched me to the heart.
Oh, that I might fly to her side to cheer her!"

"For 'the poor little bride' there was no lack of those sweet words,
touched with the grateful humility of a manly love, to receive which was a
precious foretaste to her of the happiness of the years to come." "That I
am the object of so much love and devotion often comes over me as something
I can hardly realise," wrote the Prince. "My prevailing feeling is, What am
I that such happiness should be mine? For excess of happiness it is to me
to know that I am so dear to you." Again, in referring to his grandmother's
regret at his departure he added, "Still she hopes, what I am convinced
will be the case, that I may find in you, my dear Victoria, all the
happiness I could possibly desire. And so I SHALL, I can truly tell her for
her comfort." And once more he wrote from "dear old Coburg," brimming over
with loyal joy, "How often are my thoughts with you! The hours I was
privileged to pass with you in your dear little room are the radiant points
of my life, and I cannot even yet clearly picture to myself that I am to be
indeed so happy as to be always near you, always your protector." Last and
most touching assurance of all, touching as it was solemn, when he
mentioned to the Queen that in an hour he was to take the sacrament in
church at Coburg, and went on, "God will not take it amiss, if in that
serious act, even at the altar, I think of you, for I will pray to Him for
you and for your soul's health, and He will not refuse us His blessing."

In the meantime there was much to do in England. On the 20th of November
the Queen, with the Duchess of Kent, left Windsor for Buckingham Palace. On
the 23rd, the Council assembled there in the Bow-room on the ground floor.
The ceremony of declaring her proposed marriage was a mere form, but a very
trying form to a young and modest woman called to face alone a gathering of
eighty-three elderly gentlemen, and to make to them the announcement which