ot better pleased than
the rest of us. Papa looks very grave, or else tries to joke it
off.

FRIDAY, _May_ 10, 1839, ADMIRALTY

Agitating morning--one report following another every hour. Sir
Robert Peel refused to form a Ministry unless the Queen would part
with some of her household. To this she would not consent. To-day
she sent for Lord Melbourne.... We went to the first Queen's ball,
very anxious to see how she and other people looked, and to try to
foresee coming events by the expression of faces.... I spoke to
scarcely one Tory, but our Whig friends were in excellent
spirits--the Queen also seemed to be so.

TUESDAY, _May_ 14, 1839, ADMIRALTY

Papa and Bill [12] came from the House of Lords quite delighted
with Lord Melbourne's speech in explanation of what has
passed--manner, matter, everything perfect.

[12] Her brother, Lord Melgund, afterwards third Earl of Minto.

Thus, within the week, the Whig Ministry had resigned and accepted office
again: this is what had happened.

On his return from Italy to take office Sir Robert Peel requested the Queen
to change the ladies of her household, and on her refusal to do so, the
Melbourne Ministry had come in again. Their return to power has been
generally considered a blunder, from the party point of view; but their
action in this case was not the result of tactical calculations. The young
Queen was strange as yet to the throne, and she could not bear to be
deprived of her personal friends. When Peel made a change in her household
the condition of accepting office, she turned to the Whigs, who felt they
could not desert her. "My dear Melbourne," wrote Lord John, "I have seen
Spencer, who says that we could not have done otherwise than we have done
as gentlemen, but that bur difficulties with the Radicals are not
diminished...."

They were, indeed, hard put to it to carry on the Government at all, and
they only succeeded in passing their Education Bill by a majority of two.

On August 12th the Mintos were still kept in London. "Oh for the boys and
guns and dogs, a heathery moor, and a blue Scotch heaven above me!" she
writes. When they did get away home, they remained there until the
beginning of the new year. At home she seems to have been much happier. She
taught her young brothers and sisters, she visited her village friends, and
rambled and read a great deal. In short, it was Minto!--all she fo