His father’s house—not now is the time to enlarge upon these words, nor the suggestions of most tender sadness, the subduing Lenten shadow upon the general joy which they convey, and which is in everybody’s mind. It is the house of his Mother whom her people have come to serve, not with ordinary tributes of loyalty, but with intuitions of love. England has learned to know, not what custom exacts or duty requires towards her Royal Mistress, but, with a certain tender devotion which perhaps a nation can bear only to a woman, to follow the thoughts, the wishes, the inclinations of HER QUEEN. Something has come to pass of which constitutional monarchy, popular freedom, just laws, offer no sufficient explanation. The country is at one with the Sovereign. A union so perfect has come about by degrees, as was natural; and the heart of the race which expanded to her in natural sympathy, when, young and inexperienced, she ascended the throne, has quickened gradually into a warmer universal sentiment than perhaps has ever been felt for a monarch. We use the ancient hyperboles of loyalty with calmness in this island, knowing that they rather fall short of the fact than exceed it. It is barely truth to say that any trouble or distress of Hers affects her humble subjects in a degree only less acute than their own personal afflictions; and that never neighbour was wept over with a truer heart in the day of her calamity than was the Queen in hers by every soul of her subjects, great and small. Intense sorrow cannot dwell long in the universal bosom; but the country, not contented with rendering its fullest tribute of grief for the lost, has dedicated many an occasional outbreak of tears through all these months to that unaccustomed cloud which veiled the royal house. And now it is spring, and the purest abstract type of joy—young love and marriage—comes with strange yet sweet significance in Lent, to open, as we all hope, a new chapter in that household history in which we are so much concerned. With all the natural force of revulsion out of mourning, with all the natural sympathy for that visible representation of happiness in which men and women can never refuse to be interested, there has mingled, above all, a wistful national longing “to please the Queen.” Curiosity and interest were doubtless strongly excited by the coming of the bride—but not for the fair Danish Princess alone would London have built itself anew in walls of human faces, and an entire community expended a day of its most valuable time for one momentary glimpse of the sweet girlish countenance on which life as yet has had time to write nothing but hope and beauty. The sentiment of that wonderful reception was but a subtle echo of our Lady’s wish, lovingly carried out by the nation, which is her Knight as well as Subject. To hide our dingy London houses, we could not resort to the effective tricks with which skilful French hands can make impromptu