Two days later Queen Victoria wrote from Buckingham Palace to Mr. Gladstone, who was then Prime Minister, one of those touching letters which on many occasions drew still more closely together the ties of loyalty and affection between Her Majesty and her people. The Queen wrote that she was anxious “to express publicly her own personal very deep sense of the reception she and her dear children met with on Tuesday, the 27th of February, from millions of her subjects on her way to and from St. Paul’s. Words are too weak for the Queen to say how very deeply touched and gratified she has been by the immense enthusiasm and affection exhibited towards her dear son and herself, from the highest down to the lowest, in the long progress through the capital, and she would earnestly wish to convey her warmest and most heartfelt thanks to the whole nation for this great demonstration of loyalty. The Queen, as well as her son and dear daughter-in-law, felt that the whole nation joined with them in thanking God for sparing the beloved Prince of Wales’s life.…” [Illustration: THANKSGIVING DAY, 1872: THE PROCESSION UP LUDGATE HILL _From the “Illustrated London News”_] Although the Duchess of Teck had not been able to attend the Thanksgiving Service at St. Paul’s, she returned to England in time to take part in a great ceremony which took place on the 1st of May at the Crystal Palace. Referring to this occasion, she writes:--“We drove down to Sydenham with Louise as Alfred’s guests to attend the _fête_ in celebration of Wales’s recovery. Concert: Sullivan’s _Te Deum_, Miscellanies with Titiens.” The impression made by King Edward’s illness and marvellous recovery upon the Royal family in general is well illustrated by the following passage from a letter written by Princess Alice to her mother in December 1872:-- “That our good, sweet Alix should have been spared this terrible grief, when this time last year it seemed so imminent, fills my heart with gratitude for her dear sake, as for yours, his children and ours.… The 14th will now be a day of mixed recollections and feelings to us, a day hallowed in our family, when one great spirit ended his work on earth … and when another was left to fulfil his duty and mission, God grant, for the welfare of his own family and of thousands.” CHAPTER XI 1873-1875 The year 1873 was spent on the whole very quietly by the King and Queen. His Majesty took up once more the thread of his public life which had been interrupted for a considerable time by his illness and convalescence. A pleasant glimpse of the home life at Sandringham about this time is given in the following letters from the witty and eloquent Archbishop Magee (then Bishop of Peterborough), written to his wife:-- “SANDRINGHAM, _6th December 1873_.