After the wedding breakfast the young couple departed, at a quarter before four, for Windsor, amid the cheers of the undiminished multitude. Her Majesty's travelling dress was a white satin pelisse, trimmed with swansdown, with a white satin bonnet and feather. As the cortege passed rapidly up Constitution Hill, the Queen bowed in return to the cheers of her applauding subjects with much earnestness of manner. When the Queen and Prince arrived at Windsor, they found the whole town illuminated, and received a rapturous welcome from the citizens and the Eton boys, all wearing favours. [Sidenote: THE WEDDING-CAKE.] We shall conclude this chapter, which we shall not desecrate by devoting to any other deity than Hymen, by a brief description of the Queen's wedding-cake, which, fortunately for our enterprise, we have succeeded in disinterring from the contemporary records. It was described by an eye-witness as consisting of all the most exquisite compounds of all the rich things with which the most expensive cakes can be composed, mingled and mixed together with delightful harmony by the most elaborate science of the confectioner. It weighed 300 pounds, was three yards in circumference, and fourteen inches in depth. On the top was a device of Britannia blessing the bride and bridegroom, who were dressed, somewhat incongruously, in the costume of ancient Rome. At the foot of the bridegroom was the figure of a dog, intended to denote fidelity; at the feet of the Queen a pair of turtle-doves. A host of gamboling Cupids, one of them registering the marriage in a book, and bouquets of white flowers tied with true-lovers' knots, completed the decorations. CHAPTER XIV. EARLY YEARS OF MARRIED LIFE. Difficulties and Delicacy of Prince Albert's Position--Early Married Life--Studies continued--Attempts on the Queen's Life--Courage of the Queen--Birth of the Princess Royal--Parting from the Whig Ladies of the Bedchamber--Dark Days for England--Birth of the Prince of Wales--The Queen described by M. Guizot--A Dinner at Buckingham Palace--State Dinner at Windsor.