or
the moment, but, after all, it was Coburg that had his heart. "While
I shall be untiring," he wrote to his grandmother, "in my efforts and
labours for the country to which I shall in future belong, and where
I am called to so high a position, I shall never cease ein treuer
Deutscher, Coburger, Gothaner zu sein." And now he must part from Coburg
for ever! Sobered and sad, he sought relief in his brother Ernest's
company; the two young men would shut themselves up together, and,
sitting down at the pianoforte, would escape from the present and the
future in the sweet familiar gaiety of a Haydn duet.

They returned to Germany; and while Albert, for a few farewell months,
enjoyed, for the last time, the happiness of home, Victoria, for the
last time, resumed her old life in London and Windsor. She corresponded
daily with her future husband in a mingled flow of German and English;
but the accustomed routine reasserted itself; the business and the
pleasures of the day would brook no interruption; Lord M. was once
more constantly beside her; and the Tories were as intolerable as ever.
Indeed, they were more so. For now, in these final moments, the old feud
burst out with redoubled fury. The impetuous sovereign found, to her
chagrin, that there might be disadvantages in being the declared enemy
of one of the great parties in the State. On two occasions, the Tories
directly thwarted her in a matter on which she had set her heart. She
wished her husband's rank to be axed by statute, and their opposition
prevented it. She wished her husband to receive a settlement from the
nation of L50,000 a year; and, again owing to the Tories, he was only
allowed L30,000. It was too bad. When the question was discussed in
Parliament, it had been pointed out that the bulk of the population was
suffering from great poverty, and that L30,000 was the whole revenue of
Coburg; but her uncle Leopold had been given L50,000, and it would
be monstrous to give Albert less. Sir Robert Peel--it might have been
expected--had had the effrontery to speak and vote for the smaller sum.
She was very angry; and determined to revenge herself by omitting to
invite a single Tory to her wedding. She would make an exception in
favour of old Lord Liverpool, but even the Duke of Wellington she
refused to ask. When it was represented to her that it would amount to
a national scandal if the Duke were absent from her wedding, she was
angrier than ever. "What! That old re