enough of the young people, and Prince Albert, accustomed to the early
hours and simple habits of Germany, felt the change trying. He confessed
that it was sometimes with the greatest difficulty he could keep awake. The
Princess's birthday came round during her kinsman's visit. The Prince
alluded to the event and to his stay at Kensington in writing to the
Duchess of Kent three years later, when he was the proud and happy
bridegroom of his cousin. He made no note of the date as having had an
effect on their relations to each other, neither did he dwell on any good
wish or gift [Footnote: Lady Bloomfield mentions among the Queen's rings "a
small enamel with a tiny diamond in the centre, the Prince's gift when he
first came to England, a lad of seventeen."] on his part; but in compliance
with a motherly request from his aunt, the Duchess, that he would send her
something he had worn, he returned to her a ring that she had given him on
that May morning. The ring had never left his finger since then. The very
shape proclaimed that it had been squeezed in the grasp of many a manly
hand. The ring had her name upon it, but the name was "Victoria" too, and
he begged her to wear it in remembrance of his bride and himself.

The favourable impression had been made in spite of the perversity of
fortune and the vagaries of human hearts, which, amidst other casualties,
might have led the Princess to accord her preference to the elder brother,
Prince Ernest, who was also "a fine young fellow," though not so well
suited to become prince-consort to the Queen of England. But for once
destiny was propitious, and neither that nor any other mischance befell the
bright prospects of the principal actors in the scene. When the King of the
Belgians could no longer refrain from expressing his hopes, he had the most
satisfactory answer from his royal niece.

"I have only now to beg you, my dearest uncle," she wrote, "to take care of
the health of one now so dear to me, and to take him under your special