“Anxiety and sorrow sat on many of the countenances assembled. There stood Guizot, with that piercing eye of fire, his whole appearance eagle-like, his countenance beaming with sagacity and a great intellect, in earnest conversation with Peel, full of gesture, and now and then his voice raised, as if bursting with feeling that would out. There were the poor Jarnacs, with full marks of sorrow for their King and Queen! The Princess Lieven; the Austrian Ambassador harassed afresh with the increasing troubles in Austria which so afflicted his wife as to make it impossible for her to be present. The party was relieved by Lord Aberdeen, Lord and Lady Mahon. I had some talk with Madame Jarnac. Her account of the poor Queen of France especially was touching, of the dangers and trials connected with their flight, of the sad deprivations to which they were subject, the terror of the poor Queen about her husband and then her children. Sir Robert Peel joined in our conversation; he views the state of Europe with much alarm. He had received private information respecting the Prince of Prussia (now at Bunsen’s), who is said to have broken his sword, and laid it with his spurs at the feet of the King of Prussia. Lady Peel looks so wonderfully young and pretty. I returned home excited with the evening we had passed with that remarkable party.” Next year (1849) dining again at Sir Robert Peel’s, Peel talked to her after dinner. “I confess I had never known him so well before, for now his conversation turned on subjects which specially brought out feeling, his children and their education, Lady Lincoln, Mr. Goulburn’s trials and excellences. Speaking of his children he enlarged upon the satisfaction of having no permanent governess, liked his girls to travel with him, said it enlarged their minds, and a good deal more, showing that amidst all his great cares the domestic element was very near his heart.” Two more daughters were born, Mary, in 1847, and Helen in 1849. The first sorrow of their married life occurred in 1850, when on 9th April their little girl Catherine Jessy (born 1845) died of meningitis after a long and painful illness. In her Journal Mrs. Gladstone writes: “Yes, to look at her face after death was a privilege. I dread lest the solemn remembrance of her loved face should in any way fade, so holy it was. “My loved child, my own Jessy, to think that the quiet countenance in its deep repose is the same which but a few hours before seemed racked with pain. The hair waved softly on the marble forehead, the dark lashes fringing her cheeks, the little white hands folded across one another. We had placed roses and lilies of the valley about her. I could not describe the sublimity of her expression.”