This visiting together the ground once so familiar to the Prince formed an era in two lives. It was the fulfilment of a beautiful, brilliant expectation which had been half dim and vague when the ardent lad was a quiet, diligent student, living simply, almost frugally, like the other students at the university on the Rhine, and his little cousin across the German Ocean, from whom he had parted in the homely red-brick palace of Kensington, had been proclaimed Queen of a great country. The prospect of their union was still very uncertain in those days, and yet it must sometimes have crossed his mind as he built air-castles in the middle of his reading; or strolled with a comrade along those old-fashioned streets, among their population of "wild-looking students," with long fair hair, pipes between their lips, and the scars of many a sword-duel on forehead and cheek; or penetrated into the country, where the brown peasant women, "with curious caps and handkerchiefs," came bearing their burden of sticks from the forest, like figures in old fairy tales. He must have told himself that the time might come when something like the transformation of a fairy-tale would be effected on his account; the plain living and high-thinking and college discipline of Bonn be exchanged for the dignity and influence of an English sovereign's consort. Then, perhaps, he would bring his bride to the dear old "fatherland," and show her where he had dreamt about her among his books. At the banquet in the afternoon the accomplished King gave the Queen's health in a speech fit for a poet. He referred to a word sweet alike to British and German hearts. Thirty years before it had echoed on the heights of Waterloo from British and German tongues, after days of hot and desperate fighting, to mark the glorious triumph of their brotherhood in arms. "Now it resounds on the banks of our fair Rhine, amidst the blessings of that peace which was the hallowed fruit of the great conflict. That word is 'Victoria.' Gentlemen, drink to the health of her Majesty the Queen of the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Ireland, and to that of her august consort." "The Queen," remarked Bunsen, "bowed at the first word, but much lower at the second. Her eyes brightened through tears, and as the King was taking his seat again, she rose and bent towards him and kissed his cheek, then took her seat again with a beaming countenance." After the four-o'clock dinner, the royal party returned to Cologne, and from a steamer on the Rhine saw, through a drizzle of rain which did not greatly mar the spectacle, a splendid display of fireworks and illumination of the town, in which the great cathedral "seemed to glow with fire."