The Duchess of Kent, the good mother who had opened her heart to her nephew as to a son, from the May-day when he came to Kensington, who had every reason to rejoice in the marriage, still shared faithfully in her daughter's perturbation. However glad the Duchess might be, it was still a troubled gladness, for she had long experience. She knew that this day closed the morning glory of a life, brought change, a greater fullness of being, but with the fullness increased duties and obligations, more to dread, as well as more to hope, a heavier burden, though there was a true friend to share it. Illusions would vanish, and though reality is better than illusion to all honest hearts, who would not spare a sigh to the bright dreams of youth--too bright with a rainbow-hued radiance and a golden mist of grand expectations, dim in their grandeur, ever to be fulfilled in this work-a-day world? And the Duchess was conscious that the mother who gives a daughter away, even to the best of sons, resigns the first place in that daughter's heart, the first right to her time, thoughts, and confidence. Queen Victoria belonged to her people, but after that great solemn claim she had till now belonged chiefly to her mother. Little wonder that the kind Duchess looked "disconsolate" in the middle of her content! The Duchess of Kent and the Duchess of Sutherland drove in the carriage with her Majesty "at a slow pace," for the royal bride, even on her bridal-day, owed herself to her subjects, while a strong escort of Household cavalry prevented the pressure of the shouting throng from becoming overpowering. On the arrival of the Queen at St. James's Palace she proceeded to her closet behind the Throne-room, where she remained, attended by her maids of honour and train-bearers, until the Lord Chamberlain announced that all was ready for the procession to the chapel. Old St. James's had been the scene of many a royal wedding. Besides that of Queen Mary, daughter of James II. and Anne Hyde, who was married to William of Orange at eleven o'clock at night in her bedchamber, Anne and George of Denmark were married, in more ordinary fashion, in the chapel. Following their example, the daughters of George II. and Queen Caroline--another Anne, the third English princess who was given to a Prince of Orange, and who was so ready to consent to the contract that she declared she would have him though he were a baboon, and her sister Mary, who was united to the Landgrave of Hesse-Cassel, were both married here; so was their brother, Frederick, Prince of Wales, to Princess Augusta of Saxe-Coburg. Prince Albert was the third of the Coburg line who wedded with the royal house of England. Already there were two strains of Saxe-Coburg blood in the veins of the sovereign of these realms. The last, and probably the most disastrous, marriage which had been celebrated in St. James's was that of George Frederick, Prince of Wales, and Caroline of Brunswick.