"For 'the poor little bride' there was no lack of those sweet words, touched with the grateful humility of a manly love, to receive which was a precious foretaste to her of the happiness of the years to come." "That I am the object of so much love and devotion often comes over me as something I can hardly realise," wrote the Prince. "My prevailing feeling is, What am I that such happiness should be mine? For excess of happiness it is to me to know that I am so dear to you." Again, in referring to his grandmother's regret at his departure he added, "Still she hopes, what I am convinced will be the case, that I may find in you, my dear Victoria, all the happiness I could possibly desire. And so I SHALL, I can truly tell her for her comfort." And once more he wrote from "dear old Coburg," brimming over with loyal joy, "How often are my thoughts with you! The hours I was privileged to pass with you in your dear little room are the radiant points of my life, and I cannot even yet clearly picture to myself that I am to be indeed so happy as to be always near you, always your protector." Last and most touching assurance of all, touching as it was solemn, when he mentioned to the Queen that in an hour he was to take the sacrament in church at Coburg, and went on, "God will not take it amiss, if in that serious act, even at the altar, I think of you, for I will pray to Him for you and for your soul's health, and He will not refuse us His blessing." In the meantime there was much to do in England. On the 20th of November the Queen, with the Duchess of Kent, left Windsor for Buckingham Palace. On the 23rd, the Council assembled there in the Bow-room on the ground floor. The ceremony of declaring her proposed marriage was a mere form, but a very trying form to a young and modest woman called to face alone a gathering of eighty-three elderly gentlemen, and to make to them the announcement which concerned herself so nearly. Of the Privy Councillors some, like the Duke of Wellington, had known the Queen all her life, some had only served her since she came to the throne, but all were accustomed to discuss very different matters with her. How difficult the task was to the Queen we may judge from the significant note. The Queen always wore a bracelet with the Prince's picture, "and it seemed," she wrote in her Journal, "to give me courage at the Council." Her own further account of the scene is as follows: "Precisely at two I went in. The room was full, but I hardly knew who was there. Lord Melbourne I saw looking kindly at me with tears in his eyes, but he was not near me. I then read my short declaration. I felt my hands shook, but I did not make one mistake. I felt most happy and thankful when it was over. Lord Lansdowne then rose, and in the name of the Privy Council asked that this most gracious and most welcome communication might be printed. I then left the room, the whole thing not lasting above two or three minutes.