But London as well as Kensington rejoiced, and the festivities were wound up with a ball given at St. James's Palace by order of the poor King and Queen, over whose heads the cloud of sorrow and parting was hanging heavily. We are told that the ball opened with a quadrille, the Princess being "led off" by Lord Fitzalan, eldest son of the Earl of Surrey and grandson of the Duke of Norfolk, Premier Duke and Earl, Hereditary Earl Marshal and Chief Butler of England. Her Royal Highness danced afterwards with Prince Nicholas Esterhazy, son of the Austrian Ambassador. Prince Nicholas made a brilliant figure in contemporary annals--not because of his own merits, not because he married one of the fairest of England's noble daughters, whose gracious English hospitalities were long remembered in Vienna, but because of the lustre of the diamonds in his Court suit. He was said to sparkle from head to heel. There was a legend that he could not wear this splendid costume without a hundred pounds' worth of diamonds dropping from him, whether he would or not, in minor gems, just as jewels fell at every word from the mouth of the enchanted Princess. We have heard of men and women behind whose steps flowers sprang into birth, but Prince Nicholas left a more glittering, if a colder, harder track. CHAPTER IV. THE ACCESSION. On the day after that on which Princess Victoria celebrated her majority. Baron Stockmar arrived at Kensington. He came from the King of the Belgians to assist King Leopold's niece in what was likely to be the great crisis of her life. During Baron Stockmar's former stay in England he had been in the character first of Physician in Ordinary to Prince Leopold, and afterwards of Private Secretary and Comptroller of his household. In those offices he had spent the greater part of his time in this country from 1816 to 1834. He had accompanied his master on his ascending the Belgian throne, but had returned to England in a few years in order to serve him better there. Baron Stockmar was thus an old and early friend of the Princess's. In addition he had a large acquaintance with the English political world, and was therefore well qualified to advise her with the force of a disinterested adviser in her difficult position. In the view of her becoming Queen, although her three predecessors, including George III after he became blind, had appointed and retained private secretaries, the office was not popular in the eyes of the Government and country, and it was not considered advisable that the future Queen should possess such a servant, notwithstanding the weight of business--enormous in the matter of signatures alone--which would fall on the Sovereign. Without any recognised position, Stockmar was destined to share with the Prime Minister one portion of the duties which ought to have devolved on a private secretary. He was also to act as confidential adviser.