like the snows of winter, and here
at last, crowned and radiant, was the spring. Lord John Russell, in an
elaborate oration, gave voice to the general sentiment. He hoped that
Victoria might prove an Elizabeth without her tyranny, an Anne without
her weakness. He asked England to pray that the illustrious Princess who
had just ascended the throne with the purest intentions and the justest
desires might see slavery abolished, crime diminished, and education
improved. He trusted that her people would henceforward derive their
strength, their conduct, and their loyalty from enlightened religious
and moral principles, and that, so fortified, the reign of Victoria
might prove celebrated to posterity and to all the nations of the earth.

Very soon, however, there were signs that the future might turn out to
be not quite so simple and roseate as a delighted public dreamed. The
"illustrious Princess" might perhaps, after all, have something within
her which squared ill with the easy vision of a well-conducted heroine
in an edifying story-book. The purest intentions and the justest
desires? No doubt; but was that all? To those who watched closely, for
instance, there might be something ominous in the curious contour
of that little mouth. When, after her first Council, she crossed the
ante-room and found her mother waiting for her, she said, "And now,
Mamma, am I really and truly Queen?" "You see, my dear, that it is so."
"Then, dear Mamma, I hope you will grant me the first request I make
to you, as Queen. Let me be by myself for an hour." For an hour she
remained in solitude. Then she reappeared, and gave a significant order:
her bed was to be moved out of her mother's room. It was the doom of the
Duchess of Kent. The long years of waiting were over at last; the moment
of a lifetime had come; her daughter was Queen of England; and that very
moment brought her own annihilation. She found herself, absolutely and
irretrievably, shut off from every vestige of influence, of confidence,
of power. She was surrounded, indeed, by all the outward signs of
respect and consideration; but that only made the inward truth of her
position the more intolerable. Through the mingled formalities of Court
etiquette and filial duty, she could never penetrate to Victoria. She
was unable to conceal her disappointment and her rage. "Il n'y a plus
d'avenir pour moi," she exclaimed to Madame de Lieven; "je ne suis plus
rien." For eighteen years, she said,