‘Last night I dreamt he had returned and was delighted to be at Freshwater and that you, dear Alfred, in the emotion of joy at seeing him, walked round him three times, and I said “Why don’t you then embrace each other?” And Charles answered, “I can’t trust myself at my age to give way to my emotion,” but when Mrs. Tennyson entered he kissed her hand. ‘Now I feel full of gratitude, and the soft sweet feeling of returning spring on the earth is scarcely softer than the sensation in my heart of returning peace.’ IV. The Prince Consort came to see the Tennysons when they first arrived at Farringford, and found them in confusion, the departing occupant being still there with some of his furniture. There is a letter from Mrs. Tennyson to Matilda Tennyson written in the spring of 1862 after the Prince’s death, in which we read: ‘We hear that the poor Queen is better, she begins to take interest in things out of doors, to ask about the birds that he loved.’ Then again: ‘The Queen sent for Alfred, she looked calm and pale like a statue, and spoke very sweetly and sadly. Alfred was touched even to tears. He does not remember much of what she said, he remembered himself saying thanks, and expressing his happiness of being of use. ‘When Alfred said “He would have made a great King,” the Queen answered “He always used to say to me it was no matter whether he or I did the right thing, so long as the right thing was done.”’ When the dedication of the ‘Idylls’ came out the Princess Royal wrote: ‘I cannot separate King Arthur from the image of him I most revere upon earth—as to the dedication I cannot say what I feel.’[2] The following letter was written by Mrs. Tennyson to Tennyson’s mother, describing the first visit from Farringford to the widowed Queen. 1863. ‘Father, Mother and children all went, being shown the pretty grounds, the dairies, the kitchen where the Princesses amused themselves, the gardens of the royal children and the fort Prince Arthur had made. On returning to the Palace the Queen sent for us all; we heard soon after we had come into the drawing-room a quiet shy opening of the door and in she came; she gave me her hand, and I found myself on my knees, but I don’t exactly know how I got there. Alfred talked most eloquently; we talked of everything in heaven and on earth almost, Jowett, the farm, the millennium. Her face is so beautiful, not a bit like her portraits, small and child-like, yet so simple, full of thought and feeling—her eyes are full of love, it does one good to look upon her.’ There is a sentence concerning another ruler then living whose reign is not over.