So it seemed that life smiled on and around the royal wedded pair on that winter afternoon, so unwintry to them, when they took leave of relations and wedding guests at Buckingham Palace, and set out for Windsor Castle. Even the heavens which had wept in the morning with those who wept, changed its mood, and smiled on bride and bridegroom, as they drove forth in an open carriage and four, followed by other open carriages containing a picked suite of friends and attendants--all with favor-decked postilions and footmen in the royal red liveries, and everything grand and gay. The Queen was dressed in a white satin _pelisse_, profusely trimmed with swan's-down. She seems, in those days, to have been very fond of nestling down under that soft, warm, dainty sort of a wrap. How like a white dove she must have looked that day, for her bonnet was white, trimmed with white, plumes. Prince Albert wore a fur-trimmed coat, with a high collar, and had a very high hat, which for the most part was in his hand, so much saluting was he obliged to do to the saluting multitude. All the world was abroad that day--great was the flow of good feeling, and mighty was the flow of good ale, while the whole air of the Kingdom was vibrating with the peal of merry marriage-bells. All through the land free dinners were provided for the poor--good roast beef, plum-pudding-- 'alf and 'alf fare--and I am afraid the Queen's pauper-subjects would have been unwilling to have the occasion indefinitely repeated, with such observances,--would not have objected to Her Majesty proving a female Henry VIII.