discrepancies between the versions of the journal and the letters in the two

books.
The end of the crisis was now fast approaching. Sir Robert returned, and told

her that if she insisted upon retaining all her Ladies he could not form a
Government. She replied that she would send him her final decision in writing.

Next morning the late Whig Cabinet met. Lord Melbourne read to them the
Queen's letters, and the group of elderly politicians were overcome by an

extraordinary wave of enthusiasm. They knew very well that, to say the least,
it was highly doubtful whether the Queen had acted in strictaccordance with

the constitution; that in doing what she had done she had brushed aside Lord
Melbourne's advice; that, in reality, there was no public reason whatever why

they should go back upon their decision to resign. But such considerations
vanished before the passionate urgency of Victoria. The intensity of her

determination swept them headlong down the stream of her desire. They
unanimously felt that "it was impossible to abandon such a Queen and such a

woman." Forgetting that they were no longer her Majesty's Ministers, they took
the unprecedented course of advising the Queen by letter to put an end to her

negotiation with Sir Robert Peel. She did so; all was over; she had triumphed.
That evening there was a ball at the Palace. Everyone was present. "Peel and

the Duke of Wellington came by looking very much put out." She was perfectly
happy; Lord M. was Prime Minister once more, and he was by her side.

VIII
Happiness had returned with Lord M., but it was happiness in the midst of

agitation. The domestic imbroglio continued unabated, until at last the Duke,
rejected as a Minister, was called in once again in his old capacity as moral

physician to the family. Something was accomplished when, at last, he induced
Sir John Conroy to resign his place about the Duchess of Kent and leave the

Palace for ever; something more when he persuaded the Queen to write an
affectionate letter to her mother. The way seemed open for a reconciliation,

but the Duchess was stormy still. She didn't believe that Victoria had written
that letter; it was not in her handwriting; and she sent for the Duke to tell

him so. The Duke, assuring her that the letter was genuine, begged her to
forget the past. But that was not so easy. "What am I to do if Lord Melbourne

comes up to me?" "Do, ma'am? Why, receive him with civility." Well, she would
make an effort... "But what am I to do if Victoria asks me to shake hands with

Lehzen?" "Do, ma'am? Why, take her in your arms and kiss her." "What!" The
Duchess bristled in every feather, and then she burst into a hearty laugh.

"No, ma'am, no," said the Duke, laughing too. "I don't mean you are to take
Lehzen in your arms and kiss her, but the Queen." The Duke might perhaps have

succeeded, had not all attempts at conciliation been rendered hopeless by a
tragical event. Lady Flora, it was discovered, had been suffering from a

terrible internalmalady, which now grew rapidly worse. There could be little
doubt that she was dying. The Queen's unpopularity reached an extraordinary

height. More than once she was publicly insulted. "Mrs. Melbourne," was
shouted at her when she appeared at her balcony; and, at Ascot, she was hissed

by the Duchess of Montrose and Lady Sarah Ingestre as she passed. Lady Flora
died. The whole scandal burst out again with redoubled vehemence; while, in

the Palace, the two parties were henceforth divided by an impassable, a
Stygian, gulf.

Nevertheless, Lord M. was back, and every trouble faded under the enchantment
of his presence and his conversation. He, on his side, had gone through much;

and his distresses were intensified by a consciousness of his own
shortcomings. He realised clearly enough that, if he had intervened at the

right moment, the Hastings scandal might have been averted; and, in the
bedchamber crisis, he knew that he had allowed his judgment to be overruled

and his conduct to be swayed by private feelings and the impetuosity of
Victoria. But he was not one to suffer too acutely from the pangs of

conscience. In spite of the dullness and the formality of the Court, his
relationship with the Queen had come to be the dominating interest in his

life; to have been deprived of it would have been heartrending; that dread
eventuality had been--somehow--avoided; he was installed once more, in a kind

of triumph; let him enjoy the fleeting hours to the full! And so, cherished by
the favour of a sovereign and warmed by the adoration of a girl, the autumn

rose, in those autumn months of 1839, came to a wondrousblooming. The petals
expanded, beautifully, for the last time. For the last time in this

unlooked--for, this incongruous, this almost incredibleintercourse, the old
epicure tasted the exquisiteness of romance. To watch, to teach, to restrain,

to encourage the royal young creature beside him--that was much; to feel with
such a constantintimacy the impact of her quick affection, her radiant

vitality--that was more; most of all, perhaps, was it good to linger vaguely
in humorouscontemplation, in idle apostrophe, to talk disconnectedly, to make

a little joke about an apple or a furbelow, to dream. The springs of his
sensibility, hidden deep within him, were overflowing. Often, as he bent over

her hand and kissed it, he found himself in tears.
Upon Victoria, with all her impermeability, it was inevitable that such a

companionship should have produced, eventually, an effect. She was no longer
the simple schoolgirl of two years since. The change was visible even in her

public demeanour. Her expression, once "ingenuous and serene," now appeared to
a shrewdobserver to be "bold and discontented." She had learnt something of

the pleasures of power and the pains of it; but that was not all. Lord
Melbourne with his gentle instruction had sought to lead her into the paths of

wisdom and moderation, but the whole unconsciousmovement of his character had
swayed her in a very different direction. The hard clear pebble, subjected for

so long and so constantly to that encircling and insidious fluidity, had
suffered a curious corrosion; it seemed to be actually growing a little soft

and a little clouded. Humanity and fallibility are infectious things; was it
possible that Lehzen's prim pupil had caught them? That she was beginning to

listen to siren voices? That the secret impulses of self-expression, of
self-indulgence even, were mastering her life? For a moment the child of a new

age looked back, and wavered towards the eighteenth century. It was the most
critical moment of her career. Had those influences lasted, the development of

her character, the history of her life, would have been completely changed.
And why should they not last? She, for one, was very anxious that they should.

Let them last for ever! She was surrounded by Whigs, she was free to do
whatever she wanted, she had Lord M.; she could not believe that she could

ever be happier. Any change would be for the worse; and the worst change of
all... no, she would not hear of it; it would be quite intolerable, it would

upset everything, if she were to marry. And yet everyone seemed to want her
to--the general public, the Ministers, her Saxe-Coburg relations--it was

always the same story. Of course, she knew very well that there were excellent
reasons for it. For one thing, if she remained childless, and were to die, her

uncle Cumberland, who was now the King of Hanover, would succeed to the Throne
of England. That, no doubt, would be a most unpleasant event; and she entirely

sympathised with everybody who wished to avoid it. But there was no hurry;
naturally, she would marry in the end--but not just yet--not for three or four

years. What was tiresome was that her uncle Leopold had apparently determined,
not only that she ought to marry, but that her cousin Albert ought to be her

husband. That was very like her uncle Leopold, who wanted to have a finger in
every pie; and it was true that long ago, in far-off days, before her

accession even, she had written to him in a way which might well have
encouraged him in such a notion. She had told him then that Albert possessed

"every quality that could be desired to render her perfectly happy," and had
begged her "dearest uncle to take care of the health of one, now so dear to

me, and to take him under your special protection," adding, "I hope and trust
all will go on prosperously and well on this subject of so much importance to

me." But that had been years ago, when she was a mere child; perhaps, indeed,
to judge from the language, the letter had been dictated by Lehzen; at any

rate, her feelings, and all the circumstances, had now entirely changed.
Albert hardly interested her at all.

In later life the Queen declared that she had never for a moment dreamt of
marrying anyone but her cousin; her letters and diaries tell a very different

story. On August 26, 1837, she wrote in her journal: "To-day is my dearest
cousin Albert's 18th birthday, and I pray Heaven to pour its choicest

blessings on his beloved head!" In the subsequent years, however, the date
passes unnoticed. It had been arranged that Stockmar should accompany the

Prince to Italy, and the faithful Baron left her side for that purpose. He
wrote to her more than once with sympathetic descriptions of his young

companion; but her mind was by this time made up. She liked and admired Albert
very much, but she did not want to marry him. "At present," she told Lord

Melbourne in April, 1839, "my feeling is quite against ever marrying." When
her cousin's Italian tour came to an end, she began to grow nervous; she knew

that, according to a long-standing engagement, his next journey would be to
England. He would probably arrive in the autumn, and by July her uneasiness

was intense. She determined to write to her uncle, in order to make her
position clear. It must be understood she said, that "there is no no

engagement between us." If she should like Albert, she could "make no final
promise this year, for, at the very earliest, any such event could not take

place till two or three years hence." She had, she said, "a great repugnance"
to change her present position; and, if she should not like him, she was "very

anxious that it should be understood that she would not be guilty of any
breach of promise, for she never gave any." To Lord Melbourne she was more

explicit. She told him that she "had no great wish to see Albert, as the whole
subject was an odious one;" she hated to have to decide about it; and she