This anecdote gives the key-note to the Queen’s character. Her childish resolve, _I will be good_, has been the secret of her strength throughout her reign. She has never shrunk from anything which has presented itself to her in the light of a duty. When she became Queen she did not go through her business in a perfunctory way, giving her signature without question to whatever documents were placed before her. She required all the State business explained to her to such a degree that Lord Melbourne, her first Prime Minister, said laughingly that he would rather manage ten kings than one queen. On one occasion, in the early years of her reign, the Minister urged her to sign some document on the grounds of “expediency.” She looked up quietly, and said, “I have been taught to judge between what is right and what is wrong, but ‘expediency’ is a word I neither wish to hear nor to understand.” Another word which she objected to was “trouble.” Mrs. Jameson relates that one of the Ministers told her that he once carried the Queen some papers to sign, and said something about managing so as to give Her Majesty “less trouble.” She looked up from her papers, and said, “Pray never let me hear those words again; never mention the word ‘trouble.’ Only tell me how the thing is to be done and done rightly, and I will do it if I can.” This has been her principle throughout her reign: to do her work as well as she knew how to do it, without sparing herself either trouble or responsibility. It is not only the larger questions of State policy that she follows now, after more than fifty years of sovereignty, with all the knowledge which long experience gives, but she bestows close attention to the details of organization in the different departments of the Government. If any change is proposed of which she does not see the bearing or the necessity, she requires to have the reasons which prompted it laid before her, and would withhold her sanction unless her judgment were convinced. She is a constant and indefatigable worker, and those in attendance upon her have frequently expressed their surprise at her continuing at her work late into the night, and yet being almost unfailingly at her post again in the early morning. The child raising her little hand, and saying, “I will be good,” has been in this and in many other ways the mother to the woman. The solemn words of the Coronation Service have not been profaned by her as so many monarchs have profaned them. The Archbishop, delivering the Sword of State into the Sovereign’s hand at the Coronation, says: “Receive this kingly sword, brought now from the altar of God, and delivered to you by the hands of us, the servants and bishops of God, though unworthy. With this sword do justice, stop the growth of iniquity, protect the holy Church of God, help and defend widows and orphans, restore the things that are gone to decay, maintain the things that are restored, punish