alds in their tabards were marvellous to behold, and a nod from
Rouge Croix gave me the keenest gratification. I tried to catch Garter's
eye, but either I couldn't or he wouldn't. In his robes, he is like one
of the Three Kings in old missal illuminations. Goldstick in waiting is
even more splendid. With his gold rod and robes and trappings of many
colors, he looks like a royal enchanter, and as if he had raised up
all this scene of glamour by a wave of his glittering wand. The silver
trumpeters wear such quaint caps, as those I have humbly tried to
depict on the playful heads of children. Behind the trumpeters came a
drum-bearer, on whose back a gold-laced drummer drubbed his march.

When the silver clarions had blown, and under a clear chorus of
white-robed children chanting round the organ, the noble procession
passed into the chapel, and was hidden from our sight for a while, there
was silence, or from the inner chapel ever so faint a hum. Then hymns
arose, and in the lull we knew that prayers were being said, and the
sacred rite performed which joined Albert Edward to Alexandra his wife.
I am sure hearty prayers were offered outside the gate as well as within
for that princely young pair, and for their Mother and Queen. The peace,
the freedom, the happiness, the order which her rule guarantees, are
part of my birthright as an Englishman, and I bless God for my share.
Where else shall I find such liberty of action, thought, speech, or laws
which protect me so well? Her part of her compact with her people, what
sovereign ever better performed? If ours sits apart from the festivities
of the day, it is because she suffers from a grief so recent that the
loyal heart cannot master it as yet, and remains treu und fest to a
beloved memory. A part of the music which celebrates the day's service
was composed by the husband who is gone to the place where the just and
pure of life meet the reward promised by the Father of all of us to good
and faithful servants who have well done here below. As this one gives
in his account, surely we may remember how the Prince was the friend of
all peaceful arts and learning; how he was true and fast always to
duty, home, honor; how, through a life of complicated trials, he was
sagacious, righteous, active and self-denying. And as we trace in the
young faces of his many children the father's features and likeness,
what Englishman will not pray that, they may have inherited also some
of the gr