protection. I hope and trust that all will now go on prosperously and well
on this subject, now of so much importance to me."

At the same time, though an affectionate correspondence was started and
maintained for a year, no further communication passed which could tend to
enlighten the Prince as to the feelings he had excited. He went away to
complete his education, to study diligently, along with his brother, at
Brussels and Bonn; to feel in full the gladness of opening life and opening
powers of no ordinary description; to rejoice, as few young men have the
same warrant to rejoice, in the days of his unstained, noble youth.

On the King's birthday, the 21st August, the Duchess of Kent and Princess
Victoria were at Windsor Castle on a visit. In spite of some soreness over
the old grievance, the King proposed the Princess Victoria's health very
kindly at the dinner. After he had drunk the Princess Augusta's health he
said, "And now, having given the health of the oldest I will give that of
the youngest member of the royal family. I know the interest which the
public feel about her, and although I have not seen so much of her as I
could have wished, I take no less interest in her, and the more I do see of
her, both in public and private, the greater pleasure it will give me." The
whole thing was so civil and gracious that it could hardly be taken ill,
but, says Greville, "the young Princess sat opposite and hung her head with
not unnatural modesty at being thus talked of in so large a company."

In the September of that year the Duchess and the Princess went again to
Ramsgate, and stayed there till December. It was their last visit to the
quiet little resort within a short pilgrimage of Canterbury--the great
English shrine, not so much of Thomas a Becket, slain before the altar, as
of Edward the Black Prince, with his sword and gauntlets hung up for ever,
and the inscription round the effigy which does not speak of Cressy and