The Princess Royal had become engaged to Prince Frederick-William of
Prussia (for three months Emperor of Germany), and the marriage came off
on the 25th of January 1858. It was the first break in the home circle.
The Queen recorded it in her diary as 'the second most eventful day in my
life as regards feelings.' Before the wedding, the Queen and her daughter
were photographed together, but the Queen 'trembled so, that her likeness
came out indistinct.' The correspondence between the mother and her
daughter began and continued, close and confidential, full of trusting
affection and solicitous wisdom.

[Illustration: Prince-Consort.]

On November 9, 1858, the Prince of Wales celebrated his eighteenth
birthday. Mr Greville in his journal tells us that on that occasion the
Queen wrote her son 'one of the most admirable letters that ever were
penned.' She told him that he may have thought the rule they adopted for
his education a severe one, but that his welfare was their only object,
and well knowing to what seductions of flattery he would eventually be
exposed, they wished to prepare and strengthen his mind against them; that
he must now consider himself his own master, and that they should never
intrude any advice upon him, although always ready to counsel him whenever
he thought fit to attend. This was a very long letter, which the prince
received with a feeling that proved the wisdom which dictated it.

In 1860, while travelling with the Queen in Germany, the Prince-Consort
met with a severe carriage accident, his comparative escape from which
left the Queen full of happy thanksgiving, though, as she herself says,
'when she feels most deeply, she always appears calmest.' But, she added,
she 'could not rest without doing something to mark permanently her
feelings. In times of old,' she considered, 'a church or a monument would