sent, and that they should all dress alike in
rich robes of crimson velvet and white ermine, and each peer and peeress
has a little coronet which he or she does not put on at first, but keeps
on a cushion until the King puts on his crown. Then all the little
coronets are put on at the same instant. Now, the arrangements for the
coronation were very difficult to make, for all the peers and peeresses
had to have seats in the Abbey given to them, and there were so many
that it was difficult for them all to get in. Quite early that morning,
at seven o'clock, the Abbey doors had been opened, and the dukes,
marquesses, earls, viscounts, and barons, with their wives, had rolled
up in their carriages, and alighted and gone inside there to wait. I
expect a good many of them had never been up so early in their lives,
and had never waited patiently for so long before. Some of them did not
come in carriages, but as it was fine walked across from their houses,
which were only a short way off, and what a sight they made! Nowadays to
see a man dressed in crimson velvet and white ermine, with white silk
stockings, and with a page carrying a coronet on a cushion by his side,
and another page holding up his long train, is not very usual. The
people watching must have enjoyed all this unusual grandeur, and felt as
if they were living in a page of English history.

Then the royal carriages, with the scarlet-clad coachmen and footmen,
began to sweep up, and the great festival had begun. The guns boomed
out, telling that the King and Queen had left Buckingham Palace, and not
very long after they arrived at the hall which had been built at one end
of the Abbey, and there the Duke of Norfolk, bareheaded, waited to
receive their Majesties. The Queen, being nearest to him, stepped out
first, and she was clothed in cloth-of-gold, which shone and glittered
even on that dull day. The King followed her, looking up with pleased
surprise at the beautiful reception-hall that was prepared for him, and
they entered the Abbey hall to make ready for the procession in the
Abbey itself.

Already we have spoken so much of the grandeur of the spectacle that it
is difficult to say more; perhaps no one who did not see it can ever
realize quite what it was like. The peers and peeresses took their
places in the Abbey, and then the procession which was to walk up the
aisle was formed. First came princes and princesses, with distinguished
persons bearing their trai