.

Lord Melbourne heartily wishes your Majesty every success in the
interesting and important task in which you are engaged of forming the
character and disposition of the young Prince.

[Pageheading: DOMESTIC HAPPINESS]

_Queen Adelaide to Queen Victoria._

CANFORD HOUSE, _14th February 1843._

MY DEAREST NIECE,--Your delightful letter of Tuesday gave me such
pleasure and satisfaction that I must thank you with all my heart for
it. Your happiness, and your gratitude for that happiness, is most
gratifying to my feelings, having loved you from your infancy almost
as much as if you had been my own child. It is therefore happiness to
me to hear from yourself those expressions to which you gave vent. I
thank God that you have such an excellent husband, so well calculated
to make you happy and to assist you in your arduous duties by his
advice, as well as his help in sharing your troubles. I pray that your
domestic happiness may last uninterruptedly, and that you may enjoy it
through a long, long period of _many, many years_. You cannot say too
much of _yourself_ and dear Albert when you write to me, for it is a
most interesting subject to my heart, I assure you.

What a _shame_ to have put on darling little Victoria a _powdered
wig_! Poor dear child must have looked very strange with it! Did her
brother appear in _einer Allonge-Peruecke_?...

I shall hope to follow you to town early next month, and look forward
with great pleasure to seeing you so soon again. Forgive me my
horrible scrawl, and with my best love to dearest Albert, believe
me, ever, my dearest Victoria, your most affectionate and faithfully
devoted Aunt,

ADELAIDE.

Pray tell your dear mother, with my affectionate love, that I will
answer her letter to-morrow.

[Pageheading: INTERCHANGE OF VISITS]

_Queen Victoria to the King of the Belgians._

WINDSOR CASTLE, _14th February 1843._

MY DEAREST UNCLE,--Many thanks for your kind letter of the 10th, which
I received on Sunday. I am only a little wee bit distressed at your
writing _on the 10th_, and not taking any notice of the _dearest,
happiest_ day in my life, to which I owe the present _great_ domestic
happiness I now enjoy, and which is much greater than I deserve,
though certainly my Kensington life for the last six or seven years
had been one of great misery and oppression, and I may expect some
little retribution, and, indeed, _after_ my accession, there was a
great deal