The show must have been weirdly picturesque when wild wintry weather, as
in this case, added to the effect, "viewed for the distance of three
miles, through the spacious Long Walk, amidst a double row of lofty trees,
whilst at intervals the glittering of the flambeaux and the sound of
martial music were distinctly seen and heard."

The Duke's funeral only anticipated by a few days the still more
magnificent ceremonial with which a king was laid in the tomb.

But the real mourning was down in Devonshire, in the Sidmouth cottage. It
would be difficult to conceive more trying circumstances for a woman in
her station than those in which the young Duchess--she was but little over
thirty--found herself left. She had lost a kind husband, her child would
miss a doting father. She was a foreigner in a strange country. She had
entered into a divided family, with which her connection was in a measure
broken by the death of the Duke, while the bond that remained, however
precious to all, was too likely to prove a bone of contention. The Duke
had died poor. The Duchess had previously relinquished her German
jointure, and the English settlement on her was inadequate, especially if
it were to be cumbered with the discharge of any of her husband's personal
debts. It was not realised then that the Duchess of Kent, in marrying the
Duke and becoming his widow and the guardian of their child, had given up
not only independence, but what was affluence in her own country, with its
modest ways of living--even where princes were concerned--for the
mortification and worry of narrow means, the strain of a heavy
responsibility, the pain of much unjustifiable and undeserved interference,
misconception, and censure, until she lived to vindicate the good sense,
good feeling, and good taste with which she had always acted.

But the Duchess was not altogether desolate. Prince Leopold hurried to her