Alas for this fairy-Prince in an unfairylike kingdom! He could only declare his love, and sound the heart of his beloved, with his eyes. Etiquette put a leaden seal on his lips till from hers should come the sweet avowal and the momentous proffer to rule the ruler--to assume love's sovereignty over the Sovereign. After five days of troubled yet joyous waiting, it came--the happy "climax," as the Prince called it in a letter to Baron Stockmar--and then that perfectest flower of human life, whether in palace or cottage, a pure and noble love, burst into full and glorious bloom in each young heart. One cannot, even now, read without a genuine heart-thrill, and a mistiness about the eyes, the simple touching story of that royal romance of royal old Windsor. More than two-score years have passed, and yet how fresh it seems! It has the dew and the bloom of Paradise upon it. What in all this story seems to me most beautiful and touching, because so exquisitely womanly, is the meekness of the young Queen. Though as Queen she offered the Prince her coveted hand--that hand that had held the sceptre of sceptres, and which Princes and Peers and the representatives of the highest powers on earth, had kissed in homage, it was only as a poor little woman's weak hand, which needed to be upheld and guided in good works, by a stronger, firmer hand; and her head, when she laid it on her chosen husband's shoulder, had not the feel of the crown on it. Indeed, she seems to have felt that his love was her real coronation, his faith her consecration. To the beloved Stockmar, to whom but a little while before she had communicated her unalterable determination not to marry any one for ever so long the newly betrothed wrote: "I do feel so guilty I know not how to begin my letter; but I think the news it will contain will be sufficient to ensure your forgiveness. Albert has completely won my heart, and all was settled between us this morning. I feel certain he will make me happy. I wish I could feel as certain of my making him happy, but I will do my best." Among the entries in the Queen's journal are many like this: "How I will strive to make Albert feel as little as possible the great sacrifice he has made. I told him it _was_ a great sacrifice on his part, but he would not allow it."