unmarried, dressed for a Drawing-room, with five or six yellow feathers
towering above her head, and refers to her huge dimensions then. It was
alleged afterwards that it required a chain of her husband's faithful
subjects in Homburg to encompass his consort. She accommodated herself
wonderfully, though she was an elderly woman before she had ever been out
of England, to the curious quaint mixture of State and homeliness in the
little German town in which she was held in much respect and regard. The
Landgravine was seventy years of age at the time of her death. After her
widowhood she resided in Hanover, where her brother, King William, gave her
a palace, and then at Frankfort, where she died. Out of her English income
of ten thousand a year, it was said she spared six thousand for the needs
of Hesse Homburg. Its castle and English garden still retain memories of
the English princess who made her quiet home there and loved the place.

The marriage of the Queen was fixed for the 10th of February, and many
eager, aspiring young couples throughout the country elected that it should
be their wedding-day, also. They wished that the gala of their lives should
fit in with hers, and that all future "happy returns of the day" might have
a well-known date to go by, and a State celebration to do them honour.

Lord Torrington and Colonel--afterwards General--Grey set out for Gotha to
escort the bridegroom to England. They carried with them the Order of the
Garter, with which Prince Albert was invested by his father, himself a
Knight of the Order, amidst much ceremony.

All the world knows that the Order of the Garter is the highest knightly
order of England, dating back to the time of Edward III., and associated
by a gay and gallant tradition with the beautiful Countess of Salisbury.
The first Chapter of the Order was held in 1340, when twenty-five knights,
headed by the King, walked in solemn procession to St. George's Chapel,