But London as well as Kensington rejoiced, and the festivities were wound
up with a ball given at St. James's Palace by order of the poor King and
Queen, over whose heads the cloud of sorrow and parting was hanging
heavily. We are told that the ball opened with a quadrille, the Princess
being "led off" by Lord Fitzalan, eldest son of the Earl of Surrey and
grandson of the Duke of Norfolk, Premier Duke and Earl, Hereditary Earl
Marshal and Chief Butler of England. Her Royal Highness danced afterwards
with Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, son of the Austrian Ambassador. Prince
Nicholas made a brilliant figure in contemporary annals--not because of his
own merits, not because he married one of the fairest of England's noble
daughters, whose gracious English hospitalities were long remembered in
Vienna, but because of the lustre of the diamonds in his Court suit. He
was said to sparkle from head to heel. There was a legend that he could not
wear this splendid costume without a hundred pounds' worth of diamonds
dropping from him, whether he would or not, in minor gems, just as jewels
fell at every word from the mouth of the enchanted Princess. We have heard
of men and women behind whose steps flowers sprang into birth, but Prince
Nicholas left a more glittering, if a colder, harder track.



CHAPTER IV.
THE ACCESSION.


On the day after that on which Princess Victoria celebrated her majority.
Baron Stockmar arrived at Kensington. He came from the King of the Belgians
to assist King Leopold's niece in what was likely to be the great crisis of
her life. During Baron Stockmar's former stay in England he had been in the
character first of Physician in Ordinary to Prince Leopold, and afterwards