"In her box to the left of me sat the Queen, keeping time with her fan to the singing of Pauline Garcia, her favorite Minister, Lord Melbourne, standing behind her chair, and her maids of honor grouped around her-- herself the youthful, smiling, admired sovereign of the most powerful nation on earth. The Queen's face has thinned and grown more oval since I saw her four years ago as the Princess Victoria. She has been compelled to think since then, and such exigencies in all stations in life work out the expression of the face. She has now what I should pronounce a decidedly intellectual countenance, a little petulant withal when she turns to speak, but on the whole quite beautiful enough for a virgin Queen. She was dressed less gaily than many others around her." I have given much space to these personal descriptions of Queen Victoria as she appeared in those first two years of her Queenhood, because they are still to the world--the world of young people, at least--the most interesting years of all her glorious reign. There was great poetry about that time, and, it must be confessed, some peril. Mrs. Oliphant, in her excellent little life of the Queen, says: "The immediate circle of friends around the young sovereign fed her with no flatteries." It is difficult to believe such a statement of any mortal Court-circle. But if gross adulation was not offered--a sort of moral pabulum, which the Queen's admirable good sense would have rejected, there was profound homage in the very attitude of courtiers and in the etiquette of Court life. The incense of praise and admiration, "unuttered or exprest," was perpetually and inevitably rising up about her young footsteps wherever they strayed; it formed the very air she breathed--about as healthful an atmosphere to live and sleep in as would be that of a conservatory abounding in tuberoses, white lilies, and jessamine. Still, that she did not grow either arrogant or artificial, seems proved by the pleasant accounts given of her simple and gracious ways by the painters of whom I have spoken--Thomas Sully and Charles Leslie. I remember particularly, hearing from a friend of Mr. Sully, of the generous interest she took in his portrait of her, which, I think, was painted at Windsor. She gave him all the sittings, or rather standings, her busy life would allow; giving him free use of all the splendid paraphernalia necessary for his work. Between whiles the painter's young daughter stood for the picture, being, of course, obliged to don the royal robes and even the tiara. One day, while thus engaged and arrayed, the Queen came suddenly into the room. Miss Sully much confused was about to descend from the steps of the throne, when the Queen exclaimed, laughing: "Pray stay as you are; I like to see how I look!"