But it was not only through the feelings—­commiserating or indignant—­of personal sympathy that the Queen and her people were being drawn more nearly together; they were beginning, at last, to come to a close and permanent agreement upon the conduct of public affairs.  Mr. Gladstone’s second administration (1880-85) was a succession of failures, ending in disaster and disgrace; liberalism fell into discredit with the country, and Victoria perceived with joy that her distrust of her Ministers was shared by an ever-increasing number of her subjects.  During the crisis in the Sudan, the popular temper was her own.  She had been among the first to urge the necessity of an expedition to Khartoum, and, when the news came of the catastrophic death of General Gordon, her voice led the chorus of denunciation which raved against the Government.  In her rage, she despatched a fulminating telegram to Mr. Gladstone, not in the usual cypher, but open; and her letter of condolence to Miss Gordon, in which she attacked her Ministers for breach of faith, was widely published.  It was rumoured that she had sent for Lord Hartington, the Secretary of State for War, and vehemently upbraided him.  “She rated me,” he was reported to have told a friend, “as if I’d been a footman.”  “Why didn’t she send for the butler?” asked his friend.  “Oh,” was the reply, “the butler generally manages to keep out of the way on such occasions.”

But the day came when it was impossible to keep out of the way any longer.  Mr. Gladstone was defeated, and resigned.  Victoria, at a final interview, received him with her usual amenity, but, besides the formalities demanded by the occasion, the only remark which she made to him of a personal nature was to the effect that she supposed Mr. Gladstone would now require some rest.  He remembered with regret how, at a similar audience in 1874, she had expressed her trust in him as a supporter of the throne; but he noted the change without surprise.  “Her mind and opinions,” he wrote in his diary afterwards, “have since that day been seriously warped.”

Such was Mr. Gladstone’s view,; but the majority of the nation by no means agreed with him; and, in the General Election of 1886, they showed decisively that Victoria’s politics were identical with theirs by casting forth the contrivers of Home Rule—­that abomination of desolation—­into outer darkness, and placing Lord Salisbury in power.  Victoria’s satisfaction was profound.  A flood of new unwonted hopefulness swept over her, stimulating her vital spirits with a surprising force.  Her habit of life was suddenly altered; abandoning the long seclusion which Disraeli’s persuasions had only momentarily interrupted, she threw herself vigorously into a multitude of public activities.  She appeared at drawing-rooms, at concerts, at reviews; she laid foundation-stones; she went to Liverpool to open an international exhibition, driving through the streets in her open carriage in heavy rain amid vast applauding crowds.  Delighted