such good advice to both of
us, and he understands England so fully.... Stocky (as I always
used to call him) is so sensible about everything, and is _so much_
attached to you.

I shall have no great dinners, because the large rooms in the upper
story here are not yet ready. My good old Primus[1] usually dines
with me three or four times a week, almost always on Sundays, _when I
cannot invite other people to dinner, as it is not reckoned right here
for me to give dinners on Sunday, or to invite many people_. Your song
(the bust has been mentioned before) is very fine; there is something
touching in it which I like so much....

[Footnote 1: _I.e._ Premier.]

[Pageheading: OPENING OF PARLIAMENT]

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _12th January 1840._

This letter will be handed you by Torrington personally. I recommend
you not to leave late, so as to make the journey without hurry. I did
not go to church to-day; the weather is very cold, and I have to be
careful not to catch cold before the 16th, because I open Parliament
in person. _This is always a nervous proceeding, and the announcement
of my marriage at the beginning of my speech is really a very nervous
and awful affair for me. I have never failed yet, and this is the
sixth time that I have done it, and yet I am just as frightened as if
I had never done it before. They say that feeling of nervousness
is never got over, and that Wm. Pitt himself never got up to make
a speech without thinking he should fail. But then I only read my
speech._

I had to-day a visit from George[2] whom I received _alone_, and he
was very courteous. His Papa I have also seen.

[Footnote 2: Prince George of Cambridge.]

_Queen Victoria to the Prince Albert._

BUCKINGHAM PALACE, _17th January 1840._

... Yesterday just as I came home from the House of Lords,[3] I
received your dear letter of the 10th. I cannot understand at all why
you have received no letters from me, seeing that I always wrote twice
a week, regularly....

I observe with horror that I have not formally invited your father;
though that is a matter of course. My last letter will have set that
right. I ought not to have written to you on picture notepaper, seeing
that we are in deep mourning for my poor Aunt, the Landgravine,[4] but
it was quite impossible for me to write to you on mourning paper....

_But this will not interfere with our marriage in the least; th