erview with the Queen. The details of their conversation are
unknown; but it is certain that in the course of it Victoria was forced
to realise the meaning of resistance to that formidable personage, and
that she promised to use all her influence to prevent the marriage. The
engagement was broken off; and in the following year Prince Alexander of
Battenberg united himself to Fraulein Loisinger, an actress at the court
theatre of Darmstad.

But such painful incidents were rare. Victoria was growing very old;
with no Albert to guide her, with no Beaconsfield to enflame her, she
was willing enough to abandon the dangerous questions of diplomacy
to the wisdom of Lord Salisbury, and to concentrate her energies upon
objects which touched her more nearly and over which she could
exercise an undisputed control. Her home--her court--the monuments
at Balmoral--the livestock at Windsor--the organisation of her
engagements--the supervision of the multitudinous details of her daily
routine--such matters played now an even greater part in her existence
than before. Her life passed in an extraordinary exactitude. Every
moment of her day was mapped out beforehand; the succession of her
engagements was immutably fixed; the dates of her journeys--to Osborne,
to Balmoral, to the South of France, to Windsor, to London--were hardly
altered from year to year. She demanded from those who surrounded her
a rigid precision in details, and she was preternaturally quick in
detecting the slightest deviation from the rules which she had laid
down. Such was the irresistible potency of her personality, that
anything but the most implicit obedience to her wishes was felt to be
impossible; but sometimes somebody was unpunctual; and unpunctuality
was one of the most heinous of sins. Then her displeasure--her dreadful
displeasure--became all too visible. At such moments there seemed
nothing surprising in her having been the daughter of a martinet.

But these storms, unnerving as they were while they lasted, were quickly
over, and they grew more and more exceptional. With the return of
happiness a gentle benignity flowed from the aged Queen. Her smile, once
so rare a visitant to those saddened features, flitted over them with an
easy alacrity; the blue eyes beamed; the whole face, starting suddenly
from its pendulous expressionlessness, brightened and softened and cast
over those who watched it an unforgettable charm. For in her last years
there was a fas