The dreaded separation was fast approaching. Those were days in which people of all classes seemed to give freer play to their natural emotions than they do now, and the actual parting at Buckingham Palace may almost be described as agonising. "I think it will kill me to take leave of dear Papa!" were the words of the Princess to her mother. "A dreadful moment, and a dreadful day," wrote the Queen. "Such sickness came over me, real heartache, when I thought of our dearest child being gone, and for so long--all, all being over! It began to snow before Vicky went, and continued to do so without intermission all day. At times I could be quite cheerful, but my tears began to flow afresh frequently, and I could not go near Vicky's corridor." Even the less emotional but not less warm-hearted Princess Mary of Cambridge writes in her diary of February 2: "A very gloomy, tearful day! At eleven-thirty we drove to the palace to see poor dear Vicky off. It was our intention to wait downstairs; but we were sent for, and found dear Victoria [the Queen] surrounded by a number of crying relations in the Queen's Closet. It was a sad, a trying scene. We all accompanied her to the carriage, and, after bidding her adieu, Mamma and I hurried to one of the front rooms to see her drive up the Mall." There exists a private photograph, or rather a daguerreotype, taken of the Princess Royal that morning, her face unrecognisable, swollen with tears. It may be imagined how delighted the populace were when they saw that, though it was snowing hard, their Princess had chosen an open carriage for her drive through the London she even then loved so well and went on loving to the very end. The route taken was through the Mall, Fleet Street, Cheapside, and over London Bridge, and in spite of the terrible weather enormous crowds gathered to see the last of the bride. The stalwart draymen of Barclay and Perkins's brewery shouted out to the bridegroom in menacing tones, "Be kind to her or we'll have her back!" The Princess was accompanied by her father and her two elder brothers; and at Gravesend, where the Royal yacht, the _Victoria and Albert_, was waiting to take her and her bridegroom across the Channel, the scene was again most affecting. The Prince Consort was deeply moved but he was determined to appear composed, and he kept his look of serenity. Not so the Prince of Wales and Prince Alfred; they wept openly, and their example was followed by many, for there was something profoundly moving in this departure of the Daughter of England--as Cobden had called her--for a country of which the great majority of Englishmen and Englishwomen at that time knew little or nothing. Perhaps the general feeling among the educated classes of the England of that day is best reflected in a leading article in the _Times_, which said: