eal the fact. She particularly disliked Sir
Robert Peel, who would almost certainly be the next Prime Minister.
His manners were detestable, and he wanted to turn out Lord M. His
supporters, without exception, were equally bad; and as for Sir James
Graham, she could not bear the sight of him; he was exactly like Sir
John Conroy.

The affair of Lady Flora intensified these party rumours still further.
The Hastings were Tories, and Lord Melbourne and the Court were attacked
by the Tory press in unmeasured language. The Queen's sectarian
zeal proportionately increased. But the dreaded hour was now fast
approaching. Early in May the Ministers were visibly tottering; on a
vital point of policy they could only secure a majority of five in the
House of Commons; they determined to resign. When Victoria heard the
news she burst into tears. Was it possible, then, that all was over? Was
she, indeed, about to see Lord M. for the last time? Lord M. came; and
it is a curious fact that, even in this crowning moment of misery and
agitation, the precise girl noted, to the minute, the exact time of the
arrival and the departure of her beloved Minister. The conversation was
touching and prolonged; but it could only end in one way--the Queen must
send for the Duke of Wellington. When, next morning, the Duke came, he
advised her Majesty to send for Sir Robert Peel. She was in "a state of
dreadful grief," but she swallowed down her tears, and braced herself,
with royal resolution, for the odious, odious interview.

Peel was by nature reserved, proud, and shy. His manners were not
perfect, and he knew it; he was easily embarrassed, and, at such
moments, he grew even more stiff and formal than before, while his
feet mechanically performed upon the carpet a dancing-master's measure.
Anxious as he now was to win the Queen's good graces, his very anxiety
to do so made the attainment of his object the more difficult. He
entirely failed to make any headway whatever with the haughty hostile
girl before him. She coldly noted that he appeared to be unhappy and
"put out," and, while he stood in painful fixity, with an occasional
uneasy pointing of the toe, her heart sank within her at the sight of
that manner, "Oh! how different, how dreadfully different, to the
frank, open, natural, and most kind warm manner of Lord Melbourne."
Nevertheless, the audience passed without disaster. Only at one point
had there been some slight hint of a disagreement. Pee