To return to the domestic affairs of Caroline: it is to be observed that the Queen had not seen the King leave England, with indifference. She was aware that he was chiefly attracted to Hanover by the unblushing rival who, on his departure thence, had drunk, amid smiles and tears, to his speedy return. His departure, therefore, something affected her proud spirit, and she was for a season depressed. But business acted upon her as a tonic, and she was occupied and happy, yet not without her hours of trial and vexation, until the time approached for the King’s return. Bitter, however, were her feelings when she found that return protracted beyond the usual period. For the King to be absent on his birthday was a most unusual occurrence, and Caroline felt that the rival must have some power indeed who could thus restrain him from indulgence in old habits. She was, however, as proud as she was pained. She began to grow cool in her ceremony and attentions to the King. She abridged the ordinary length of her letters to him, and the usual four dozen pages were shortened into some seven or eight. Her immediate friends, who were aware of this circumstance, saw at once that her well-known judgment and prudence were now in default. They knew that to attempt to insinuate reproach to the King would arouse his anger, and not awaken his sleeping tenderness. They feared lest her power over him should become altogether extinct, and that his Majesty would soon as little regard his wife by force of habit as he had long ceased to do by readiness of inclination. It was Walpole’s conviction that the King’s respect for her was too firmly based to be ever shaken. Faithless himself, he reverenced the fidelity and sincerity which he knew were in her; and if she could not rule by the heart, it was certain that she might still continue supreme by the head--by her superior intellect. Still, the minister recognised the delicacy and danger of the moment, and, in an interview with Caroline, he made it the subject of as extraordinary a discussion as was ever held between minister and royal mistress--between man and woman. Walpole reminded her of faded charms and growing years, and he expatiated on the impossibility of her ever being able to establish supremacy in the King’s regard by power of her personal attractions! It is a trait of her character worth noticing, that she listened to these unwelcome, but almost unwarrantably expressed, truths with immoveable patience. But Walpole did not stop here. He urged her to resume her long letters to the King, and to address him in terms of humility, submissiveness, duty, and tender affection; and he set the climax on what one might almost be authorised to consider his impudence, by recommending her to invite the King to bring Madame Walmoden with him to England. At this counsel the tears _did_ spring into the eyes of Caroline. The softened feeling, however, only maintained itself for a moment. It was soon