cination in Victoria's amiability which had been lacking
even from the vivid impulse of her youth. Over all who approached
her--or very nearly all--she threw a peculiar spell. Her grandchildren
adored her; her ladies waited upon her with a reverential love. The
honour of serving her obliterated a thousand inconveniences--the
monotony of a court existence, the fatigue of standing, the necessity
for a superhuman attentiveness to the minutia: of time and space. As one
did one's wonderful duty one could forget that one's legs were aching
from the infinitude of the passages at Windsor, or that one's bare arms
were turning blue in the Balmoral cold.

What, above all, seemed to make such service delightful was the detailed
interest which the Queen took in the circumstances of those around
her. Her absorbing passion for the comfortable commonplaces, the small
crises, the recurrent sentimentalities, of domestic life constantly
demanded wider fields for its activity; the sphere of her own family,
vast as it was, was not enough; she became the eager confidante of
the household affairs of her ladies; her sympathies reached out to
the palace domestics; even the housemaids and scullions--so it
appeared--were the objects of her searching inquiries, and of her
heartfelt solicitude when their lovers were ordered to a foreign
station, or their aunts suffered from an attack of rheumatism which was
more than usually acute.

Nevertheless the due distinctions of rank were immaculately preserved.
The Queen's mere presence was enough to ensure that; but, in addition,
the dominion of court etiquette was paramount. For that elaborate code,
which had kept Lord Melbourne stiff upon the sofa and ranged the other
guests in silence about the round table according to the order of
precedence, was as punctiliously enforced as ever. Every evening after
dinner, the hearth-rug, sacred to royalty, loomed before the profane in
inaccessible glory, or, on one or two terrific occasions, actually lured
them magnetically forward to the very edge of the abyss. The Queen, at
the fitting moment, moved towards her guests; one after the other they
were led up to her; and, while dialogue followed dialogue in constraint
and embarrassment, the rest of the assembly stood still, without a word.
Only in one particular was the severity of the etiquette allowed to
lapse. Throughout the greater part of the reign the rule that ministers
must stand during their audiences with t