Upstairs we came to a halt before the glass case in which Queen Victoria's historic dresses are placed, beginning with the wedding dress, and continuing with the gowns the Queen had worn at great functions during those first years of her marriage. I invariably spend a few meditative moments before the yellowed satin wedding dress and the white silk which the bride had worn at dinner on that last day of spinsterhood. The heart of just a girl beat beneath those stiff little bodices. She had the world at her feet, and it was the day of her mating with her hero. I must admit that, to myself, "Albert" has never appeared in a romantic light. Perhaps it's the fault of the "Memorial". Where is the man who could live down the Albert Memorial? The adoring queen did her dead husband an ill turn when she sought to immortalise him in such fashion. Ah, well! the adored and the adorer are both in their graves now, and here, ironic fact, the bride's faded finery, after being laid away in lavender for years, has emerged from seclusion to enact the new rôle of relic. "Now, if that'd bin _me_," remarked Mrs. Darling, as she stared at the ivory satin dress, "I should 'ave took orf that real lace, which must be worth _pounds and pounds_, and put on a nice himitation." "Well, I'm glad it _wasn't_ you," I retorted. The old lady winked at an attendant who was standing near, and I left her to complete the conquest while I paid a visit to the "Georgian dinner party". Those diners linger over their dessert an unconscionable time. I wished I had the chance to help them out with the wine and the biscuits. The red wine in the tall glasses, the cakes and fruit, tantalise a hungry man who stares at them through the glass. The gentlemen of the party apparently don't take tea. Three cups and saucers only stand in front of the hostess, who is about to pour out. One of the guests has risen and placed his glass of wine on the mantelpiece. I imagine him the spokesman of the party. The museum was almost deserted, everybody having gone to lunch. I could hear Mrs. Darling's laugh in the distance. She and the attendant seemed to have a good deal to say to each other; but in the corner where I stood there was no one to disturb the Georgian ladies and gentlemen at their talk. Their voices, speaking through the tunnel of nearly two hundred years, were an atmosphere rather than a sound, and I was making an effort to interpret it when Mrs. D. reappeared. She said she was sorry to have kept me waiting, but the man to whom she had been talking knew the barber who used to shave her husband when he had "bin on the drink," and judging from her air of pleasant pre-occupation the encounter seemed to have had a cheering effect.