am!" said Sir Robert, "does your Majesty mean to retain them all?"
"All," said the Queen. Sir Robert's face worked strangely; he could not
conceal his agitation. "The Mistress of the Robes and the Ladies of
the Bedchamber?" he brought out at last. "All," replied once more her
Majesty. It was in vain that Peel pleaded and argued; in vain that
he spoke, growing every moment more pompous and uneasy, of the
constitution, and Queens Regnant, and the public interest; in vain that
he danced his pathetic minuet. She was adamant; but he, too, through all
his embarrassment, showed no sign of yielding; and when at last he left
her nothing had been decided--the whole formation of the Government was
hanging in the wind. A frenzy of excitement now seized upon Victoria.
Sir Robert, she believed in her fury, had tried to outwit her, to take
her friends from her, to impose his will upon her own; but that was
not all: she had suddenly perceived, while the poor man was moving so
uneasily before her, the one thing that she was desperately longing
for--a loop-hole of escape. She seized a pen and dashed off a note to
Lord Melbourne.

"Sir Robert has behaved very ill," she wrote, "he insisted on my giving
up my Ladies, to which I replied that I never would consent, and I never
saw a man so frightened... I was calm but very decided, and I think
you would have been pleased to see my composure and great firmness;
the Queen of England will not submit to such trickery. Keep yourself in
readiness, for you may soon be wanted." Hardly had she finished when the
Duke of Wellington was announced. "Well, Ma'am," he said as he entered,
"I am very sorry to find there is a difficulty." "Oh!" she instantly
replied, "he began it, not me." She felt that only one thing now was
needed: she must be firm. And firm she was. The venerable conqueror
of Napoleon was outfaced by the relentless equanimity of a girl in her
teens. He could not move the Queen one inch. At last, she even ventured
to rally him. "Is Sir Robert so weak," she asked, "that even the Ladies
must be of his opinion?" On which the Duke made a brief and humble
expostulation, bowed low, and departed.

Had she won? Time would show; and in the meantime she scribbled down
another letter. "Lord Melbourne must not think the Queen rash in her
conduct... The Queen felt this was an attempt to see whether she could
be led and managed like a child."(*) The Tories were not only wicked but
ridiculous. Peel, havin