Victoria and Albert drove that afternoon more than twenty miles between ranks of frantically loyal, rejoicing people,--past countless festive decorations, and a world of "_V_"s and "_A_"s--under arches so gay that one wondered where and how at that season all the flowers and foliage were produced,--if nature had not hurried up her spring work, so as to be able to come to the wedding. The Queen turned now and then her happy face on her shouting subjects, in graceful acknowledgment of their sympathy with her happiness; but much of the time she was observed to be regarding her husband, intently or furtively. So she had betrayed her heart during She marriage ceremony, when, as an eye-witness records, she "was observed to look frequently at Prince Albert,--in fact, she scarcely ever took her eyes off him." I suppose she found him "goodly to look upon." It is certain that she worshiped him with her eyes, as well as with her heart and soul,--then and ever after. For the world, even for the Court, he grew, as the pitiless, pilfering years went by, a little too stout, and somewhat bald, while his complexion lost something of its fine coloring and smoothness, and his eyes their fulness,--but for her, he seems to have always kept the grace and glory of his youth. Even when he was dying-when the gray twilight of the fast-coming night was creeping over his face, clouding the light of his eyes, chilling the glow of his smile--his beauty was still undimmed for her. She says in her pathetic account of those sad moments--"his beautiful face, more beautiful than ever, is grown so thin." But on this their wedding-day, death and death-bed partings were far enough from the thoughts of the royal lovers. Life was theirs,--young life, in all its fulness and richness of health, and hope, and joy, and that "perfect, love, which casteth out fear." So essentially young and so light-hearted were they, that they laughingly welcomed the crowd of shouting, leaping, hat-waving, mad Eton boys, who as they neared Windsor, turned out to receive them. The Queen jotted down this jolly incident in her journal thus: "The boys in a body accompanied the carriage to the castle, cheering and shouting as only schoolboys can. They swarmed up the mound, as the carriage entered the quadrangle, and, as the Queen and the Prince descended at the grand entrance, they made the old castle ring again with their acclamations." What would Queen Charlotte, or any of the stiff, formal Dutch Queens of any of the Georges have thought of such a boisterous wedding escort,--of such a noisy welcome to stately Windsor? They would very likely have said, "Go away, naughty _pays_! How dare you!"