“Dear to us all by those calm earnest eyes, And early thought upon that fair young brow. Dearer for that where grief was heaviest, thou Wert sunshine, till he passed where suns shall rise And set no more: thou, in affection wise And strong, wert strength to her, who even but now In the soft accents of thy bridal vow Heard music of her own heart’s memories. “Too full of love to own a thought of pride Is now thy gentle bosom; so ’tis best; Yet noble is thy choice, O English bride! And England hails the bridegroom and the guest A friend--a friend well-loved by him who died. He blessed you both; your wedlock shall be blessed.” In these simple and pathetic lines _Punch_, dropping the jester’s cap and bells, gave graceful expression to the popular feeling with which the nation bade the Princess good-bye. The parting between mother and daughter was a mournful one, though both kept their feelings well under control. Writing from the Royal yacht to bid adieu to the Queen, the Princess said, “My heart was very full when I took leave of you and all the dear ones at home; I had not the courage to say a word--but your loving heart understands what I felt.”[143] And again after she reached Darmstadt, she recurs to this sad theme. “Away from home,” is the concluding sentence of one of her letters to the Queen, “I cannot believe that beloved papa is not there; all is so associated with him.” Indeed, it may be doubted whether the loss of her daughter’s society for a time had not a salutary influence on the Queen. It stimulated her to take a fresh interest in her family life, for a correspondence, intimate and affectionate, was carried on between mother and daughter, in which the Queen had to transmit budgets of home news, the mere collecting of which diverted her thoughts from the heart wound that tortured her. From this correspondence we gather that in those days the Queen’s life was full of many gloomy hours. It is clear that the shadow of death at times fell very darkly on her spirit, and that she poured out her heart to her daughter without reserve. The Princess Louis of Hesse--as Englishmen had to learn to call the Princess Alice--on her side sympathised with every varying mood of her mother’s troubled mind, although her letters indicate how each reference to her father, whom she had idolised from her childhood, made her own wounds bleed afresh. She is sedulous in cheering her mother with accounts of her new home. She enters into all the Queen’s plans for perpetuating the Prince Consort’s memory. From her we gather that, outside of public business and family duties, these plans now filled the Queen’s life. Commissions were given to sculptors like Mr. Theed to carve busts of the Prince. Marochetti’s equestrian statue was projected, and the Princess Louis, soon after reaching Darmstadt, presses the Queen to tell her how it is progressing. The