th him, and it was all perfection. She had no shadow of
a doubt. He had come on a Thursday evening, and on the following Sunday
morning she told Lord Melbourne that she had "a good deal changed her
opinion as to marrying." Next morning, she told him that she had made
up her mind to marry Albert. The morning after that, she sent for her
cousin. She received him alone, and "after a few minutes I said to him
that I thought he must be aware why I wished them to come here--and
that it would make me too happy if he would consent to what I wished
(to marry me.)" Then "we embraced each other, and he was so kind, so
affectionate." She said that she was quite unworthy of him, while he
murmured that he would be very happy "Das Leben mit dir zu zubringen."
They parted, and she felt "the happiest of human beings," when Lord M.
came in. At first she beat about the bush, and talked of the weather,
and indifferent subjects. Somehow or other she felt a little nervous
with her old friend. At last, summoning up her courage, she said, "I
have got well through this with Albert." "Oh! you have," said Lord M.

CHAPTER IV. MARRIAGE

I

It was decidedly a family match. Prince Francis Charles Augustus Albert
Emmanuel of Saxe-Coburg--Gotha--for such was his full title--had been
born just three months after his cousin Victoria, and the same midwife
had assisted at the two births. The children's grandmother, the Dowager
Duchess of Coburg, had from the first looked forward to their marriage,
as they grew up, the Duke, the Duchess of Kent, and King Leopold came
equally to desire it. The Prince, ever since the time when, as a child
of three, his nurse had told him that some day "the little English May
flower" would be his wife, had never thought of marrying anyone else.
When eventually Baron Stockmar himself signified his assent, the affair
seemed as good as settled.

The Duke had one other child--Prince Ernest, Albert's senior by one
year, and heir to the principality. The Duchess was a sprightly and
beautiful woman, with fair hair and blue eyes; Albert was very like her
and was her declared favourite. But in his fifth year he was parted from
her for ever. The ducal court was not noted for the strictness of its
morals; the Duke was a man of gallantry, and it was rumoured that the
Duchess followed her husband's example. There were scandals: one of the
Court Chamberlains, a charming and cultivated man of Jewish extraction,
was talked of; at las