ER possessed it so entirely as this truly excellent Lord
Melbourne possesses mine!" A pang shot through her--she seized a
pen, and wrote upon the margin--"Reading this again, I cannot forbear
remarking what an artificial sort of happiness MINE was THEN, and what
a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband REAL and solid
happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses CAN change; it could
not have lasted long as it was then, for after all, kind and excellent
as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was but in Society that I
had amusement, and I was only living on that superficial resource, which
I THEN FANCIED was happiness! Thank God! for ME and others, this is
changed, and I KNOW WHAT REAL HAPPINESS IS--V. R." How did she know?
What is the distinction between happiness that is real and happiness
that is felt? So a philosopher--Lord M. himself perhaps--might have
inquired. But she was no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and
Albert was beside her, and that was enough.

Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it. Her
letters to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures. "Oh! my
dearest uncle, I am sure if you knew HOW happy, how blessed I feel, and
how PROUD I feel in possessing SUCH a perfect being as my husband..."
such ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly and almost
of their own accord. When, one day, without thinking, Lady Lyttelton
described someone to her as being "as happy as a queen," and then grew
a little confused, "Don't correct yourself, Lady Lyttelton," said Her
Majesty. "A queen IS a very happy woman."

But this new happiness was no lotus dream. On the contrary, it was
bracing, rather than relaxing. Never before had she felt so acutely the
necessity for doing her duty. She worked more methodically than ever
at the business of State; she watched over her children with untiring
vigilance. She carried on a large correspondence; she was occupied with
her farm--her dairy--a whole multitude of household avocations--from
morning till night. Her active, eager little body hurrying with quick
steps after the long strides of Albert down the corridors and avenues
of Windsor, seemed the very expression of her spirit. Amid all the
softness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all the liquescence, the
overflowings of inexhaustible sentiment, her native rigidity remained.
"A vein of iron," said Lady Lyttelton, who, as royal governess, had good
means of observation, "runs