Then there were leave-takings from the loving grandmama and the younger brothers and sisters ("Bertie" and Alfred going with their father to Gravesend, to see the bridal party embarked), and hardest of all, the parting of the child from the mother. To quote again: "A dreadful moment and a dreadful day! Such sickness came over me--real heart-ache,--when I thought of our dearest child being gone, and for so long... It began to snow before Vicky went, and continued to do so without intermission all day." In spite of the dreary weather, I am told that thousands of London people were assembled in the streets to catch a last glimpse of the popular Princess Royal. They could hardly recognize her pleasant, rosy, child- like face--it was so sad, so swollen with weeping. They did not then look with much favor on the handsome Prussian Prince at her side--and one loyal Briton shouted out, "If he doesn't treat you well, come back to us!" That made her laugh. I believe he did treat her well, and that she has been always happy as a wife, though for a time she is said to have fretted against the restraints of German Court etiquette, which bristled all round her. She found that the straight and narrow ways of that princely paradise were not hedged with roses, as at home, but with briars. Some she respected, and some she bravely broke through. The little bride was most warmly received in her new home, and about the anniversary of her own marriage-day, the Queen had the happiness of receiving from her new son this laconic telegram: "The whole royal family is enchanted with my wife. F. W." Afterwards, in writing to her uncle, of her daughter's success at the Prussian Court, and of her happiness, the Queen says: "But her heart often yearns for home and those she loves dearly--above all, her dear papa, for whom she has _un culte_ (a worship) which is touching and delightful to see." Her father returned this "worship" by tenderness and devotion unfailing and unwearying. His letters to the Crown Princess are perhaps the sweetest and noblest, most thoughtful and finished of his writings. They show that he respected as well as loved his correspondent, of whom, indeed, he had spoken to her husband as one having "a man's head and a child's heart." His letters to his uncle and the Baron are full of his joy, intellectual and affectional, in this his first-born daughter; but the last-born was not forgotten. In one letter he writes: "Little Beatrice is an extremely attractive, pretty, intelligent child; indeed, the most amusing baby we have had." Again--"Beatrice on her first birthday looks charming, with a new light-blue cap. Her table of birthday gifts has given her the greatest pleasure; especially a lamb." I know these are little, common domestic bits--that is just why I cull them out of grave letters, full of great affairs of State. CHAPTER XXVI.