appeared in London in semi-state, at hospitals and concerts; she opened Parliament; she reviewed troops and distributed medals at Aldershot.[32] But such public signs of favour were trivial in comparison with her private attentions. During his hours of audience, she could hardly restrain her excitement and delight. 'I can only describe my reception,' he wrote to a friend on one occasion, 'by telling you that I really thought she was going to embrace me. She was wreathed with smiles, and, as she tattled, glided about the room like a bird.'[33] In his absence, she talked of him perpetually, and there was a note of unusual vehemence in her solicitude for his health. 'John Manners,' Disraeli told Lady Bradford, 'who has just come from Osborne, says that the Faery only talked of one subject, and that was her Primo. According to him, it was her gracious opinion that the Government should make my health a Cabinet question. Dear John seemed quite surprised at what she said; but you are more used to these ebullitions.'[34] She often sent him presents; an illustrated album arrived for him regularly from Windsor on Christmas Day.[35] But her most valued gifts were {259} the bunches of spring flowers which, gathered by herself and her ladies in the woods at Osborne, marked in an especial manner the warmth and tenderness of her sentiments. Among these it was, he declared, the primroses that he loved the best. They were, he said, 'the ambassadors of Spring,' 'the gems and jewels of Nature.' He liked them, he assured her, 'so much better for their being wild; they seem an offering from the Fauns and Dryads of Osborne.' 'They show,' he told her, 'that your Majesty's sceptre has touched the enchanted Isle.' He sat at dinner with heaped-up bowls of them on every side, and told his guests that 'they were all sent to me this morning by the Queen from Osborne, as she knows it is my favourite flower.'[36] As time went on, and as it became clearer and clearer that the Faery's thraldom was complete, his protestations grew steadily more highly coloured and more unabashed. At last he ventured to import into his blandishments a strain of adoration that was almost avowedly romantic. In phrases of baroque convolution, he delivered the message of his heart. The pressure of business, he wrote, had 'so absorbed and exhausted him, that towards the hour of post he has not had clearness of mind, and vigour of pen, adequate to convey his thoughts and facts to the most loved and illustrious being, who deigns to consider them.'[37] She sent him some primroses, and he replied that he could 'truly say they are "more precious than rubies," coming, as they do, and at such a moment, from a Sovereign whom he adores.'[38] She sent him snowdrops, and his sentiment overflowed into poetry. 'Yesterday eve,' he wrote, 'there appeared, in Whitehall Gardens, a delicate-looking case, with a royal superscription, which, when {260}