There was a moment when the Queen’s Twin could not go on and neither of her listeners could ask a question. “Prince Albert was sitting right beside her in the carriage,” she continued. “Oh, he was a beautiful man! Yes, dear, I saw ’em both together just as I see you now, and then she was gone out o’ sight in another minute, and the common crowd was all spread over the place pushin’ an’ cheerin’. ’Twas some kind o’ holiday, an’ the carpenter and I got separated, an’ then I found him again after I didn’t think I should, an’ he was all for makin’ a day of it, and goin’ to show me all the sights; he’d been in London before, but I didn’t want nothin’ else, an’ we went back through the streets down to the waterside an’ took the boat. I remember I mended an old coat o’ my Albert’s as good as I could, sittin’ on the quarter-deck in the sun all that afternoon, and ’twas all as if I was livin’ in a lovely dream. I don’t know how to explain it, but there hasn’t been no friend I’ve felt so near to me ever since.” One could not say much—only listen. Mrs. Todd put in a discerning question now and then, and Mrs. Martin’s eyes shone brighter and brighter as she talked. What a lovely gift of imagination and true affection was in this fond old heart! I looked about the plain New England kitchen, with its wood-smoked walls and homely braided rugs on the worn floor, and all its simple furnishings. The loud-ticking clock seemed to encourage us to speak; at the other side of the room was an early newspaper portrait of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. On a shelf below were some flowers in a little glass dish, as if they were put before a shrine.