“… I arrived just as they were all at tea in the entrance hall, and had to walk in, all seedy and dishevelled from my day’s journey, and sit down beside the Princess of Wales, with Disraeli on the other side of me, and sundry lords and ladies round the table. The Prince received me very kindly, and certainly has most winning and gracious manners. The Princess seems smaller and thinner than I remember her at Dublin. They seem to be pleasant and domesticated, with little state and very simple ways.” “_7th December 1873._ “Just returned from church, where I preached for twenty-six minutes (Romans viii. 28). The church is a very small country one close to the grounds. The house, as I saw it by daylight, is a handsome country house of red stone with white facings, standing well and looking quietly comfortable and suitable. I find the company pleasant and civil, but we are a curious mixture. Two Jews, Sir A. Rothschild and his daughter; an ex-Jew, Disraeli; a Roman Catholic, Colonel Higgins; an Italian duchess who is an Englishwoman, and her daughter brought up as a Roman Catholic and now turning Protestant; a set of young lords, and a bishop. The Jewess came to church; so did the half-Protestant young lady. Dizzy did the same, and was profuse in his praises of my sermon. We are all to lunch together in a few minutes, the children dining with us. They seem, the two I saw in church, nice, clever-looking little bodies, and very like their mother.” [Illustration: QUEEN ALEXANDRA AND HER SISTER THE EMPRESS ALEXANDER OF RUSSIA, IN 1873 _From a Photograph by Maull and Fox_] King Edward and Queen Alexandra represented Queen Victoria at the marriage of the Duke of Edinburgh and the Grand Duchess Marie of Russia in January 1874. The English marriage service was performed by Dean Stanley, who wrote to Queen Victoria an interesting letter describing the Imperial wedding, in which he mentioned how much he had been struck, both in the chapel and at the subsequent banquet, by the singular difference in character and expression of the four future kings, the Prince of Wales, the Crown Prince of Prussia, the Cesarewitch, and the Crown Prince of Denmark, who were all present. On the Sunday following the wedding King Edward and Queen Alexandra attended the service at the English Church in St. Petersburg, and the Dean preached on the marriage feast at Cana in Galilee, much the same sermon which he had preached in the Chapel-Royal at Whitehall on the Sunday following the marriage of their Majesties. All through this visit to Russia their Majesties were received with unusual distinction, and a grand parade of troops was held in honour of King Edward.