the nose and a white foot. Her master had got her as a puppy of six weeks
old, when he was a boy in his fourteenth year, and had trained the loving,
graceful creature in all imaginable canine, sagacity and cleverness. She
had been the constant companion of his youth. She had already come to
England with him, on the decisive visit of the previous autumn, and was
known and dear to his royal mistress.

It was severe wintry weather when the great cavalcade, in eight travelling
carriages, set out for England, and took its way across Germany, Belgium,
and the north of France, to the coast The whole journey assumed much of the
character of a festive procession. At each halting-place crowds turned out
to do the princes honour. Every court and governing body welcomed them
with demonstrations of respect and rejoicing. But at Aix-la-Chapelle, in a
newspaper which he came across, Prince Albert read the debates and votes in
the Houses of Parliament that cut down the ordinary annuity of the English
sovereign's consort, and left unsettled the question of his position in the
country. The first disappointment told in two ways. Young and
sensitive--though he was also resolute and cheerful-minded--he had been a
little nervous beforehand about the reception which might be accorded to
him in England; he now received a painful impression that the marriage was
not popular with the people. He had indulged in generous dreams of the
assistance and encouragement which he would be able to bestow on men of
letters and artists, when he suddenly found his resources curtailed to
nearly half the amount he had been warranted in counting upon. However, at
Brussels, the next halting-place, in writing to the Queen, and frankly
admitting his mortification at the words and acts of the majority of the
members of both English Houses of Parliament, he could add with perfect
sincerity, "All I have time to say is, that while I possess your love they
cannot make me unhappy."