ed to receive the official announcement of her
succession to the throne of England, and to receive on her hand the kiss
of allegiance from these two great lords of the realm.

Her first reported words after she was made queen were to the Archbishop
of Canterbury--"I beg your Grace to pray for me;" and one of her very
first acts after the august messengers had left her was to write to the
widowed queen of William IV, Adelaide, offering her condolences and
begging that she would remain as long as she chose in the royal palace.
She addressed the letter to "Her Majesty the Queen," and when some one
standing by said to her, "you are now the queen, and your aunt deserves
the title no longer," she replied, "I know that, but I shall not be the
first to remind her of that fact."

Later in the same day, the eighteen-year-old queen was called upon to
meet the council of the high officers of Church and State. Dressed in
her simple mourning she looked dignified and calm, and her behavior
corresponded well with her looks. Of course all the great statesmen who
were thus called on to meet her, felt much curiosity as to how she would
carry off her new honors, and one of the greatest. Sir Robert Peel, said
afterward that he was "amazed at her manner and behavior; at her
apparent deep sense of her situation, her modesty and at the same time
her firmness. She appeared to be awed but not daunted."

On the following day she was publicly proclaimed at Saint James's
Palace, and all of those who had gathered to watch the ceremony, which
was performed at a window looking out on the courtyard, were as deeply
impressed as the peers and princes had been on the preceding day. It
must have been difficult for the simple, unassuming young girl to
preserve her calm dignity when she heard the singing of that grand
national anthem, _God Save the Queen_, and knew that it was for her.

In midsummer the queen moved to Buckingham Palace, and on July
seventeenth she took part in her first elaborate public ceremony--that
is, she drove in state to dissolve Parliament. All were impressed with
the manner in which she read her speech, and one distinguished observer
said to another, "How beautifully she performs!"

A pleasant story is told of the young queen shortly after her accession.
The Duke of Wellington, whom Victoria greatly admired, brought to her
for signature a court-martial death sentence. The queen, horrified, and
feeling that she could not sign her