Banquet in Guildhall--Victoria's first Christmas at Windsor Castle as Queen--Mrs. Newton Crosland's reminiscences--Coolness of Actors and Quakers amid the general enthusiasm--Issue of the first gold Sovereigns bearing Victoria's head. On Lord Mayor's Day, the Queen went in state to dine with her brother- monarch, the King of "Great London Town." It was a memorable, magnificent occasion. The Queen was attended by all the great ladies and gentlemen of her Court, and followed by an immense train of members of the royal family, ambassadors, cabinet ministers and nobility generally--in all, two hundred carriages of them. The day was a general holiday, and the streets all along the line of the splendid procession were lined with people half wild with loyal excitement, shouting and waving hats and handkerchiefs. It may have been on this day that Lord Albemarle got off his famous pun. On the Queen saying to him, "I wonder if my good people of London are as glad to see me as I am to see them?" he replied by pointing to the letters "V. R." "Your Majesty can see their loyal cockney answer-'_Ve are_.'" One account states that, "the young sovereign was quite overcome by the enthusiastic outbursts of loyalty which greeted her all along the route," but a description of the scene sent me by a friend, Mrs. Newton Crosland, the charming English novelist and poet, paints her as perfectly composed. My friend says: "I well remember seeing the young Queen on her way to dine with the Lord Mayor, on the 9th of November, 1837, the year of her accession. The crowd was so great that there were constant stoppages, and, luckily for me, one of them occurred just under the window of a house in the Strand, where I was a spectator. I shall never forget the appearance of the maiden-sovereign. Youthful as she was, she looked every inch a Queen. Seated with their backs to the horses were a lady and gentleman, in full Court-dress--(the Duchess of Sutherland, Mistress of the Robes--and the Earl of Albemarle, Master of the Horse), and in the centre of the opposite seat, a little raised, was the Queen. All I saw of her dress was a mass of pink satin and swan's-down. I think she wore a large cape or wrap of these materials. The swan's-down encircled her throat, from which rose the fair young face--the blue eyes beaming with goodness and intelligence--the rose-bloom of girlhood on her cheeks, and her soft, light brown hair, on which gleamed a circlet of diamonds, braided as it is seen in the early portraits. Her small, white-gloved hands were reposing easily in her lap. "On this occasion not only were the streets thronged, but every window in the long line of the procession was literally filled, while men and boys were seen in perilous positions on roofs and lamp-posts, trees and railings. Loud and hearty cheers, so unanimous they were like one immense multitudinous shout, heralded the royal carriage.