The past—­the past of only three years since—­when she looked back upon it, seemed a thing so remote and alien that she could explain it to herself in no other way than as some kind of delusion—­an unfortunate mistake.  Turning over an old volume of her diary, she came upon this sentence—­“As for ‘the confidence of the Crown,’ God knows!  No minister, no friend, ever possessed it so entirely as this truly excellent Lord Melbourne possesses mine!” A pang shot through her—­she seized a pen, and wrote upon the margin—­“Reading this again, I cannot forbear remarking what an artificial sort of happiness mine was then, and what a blessing it is I have now in my beloved Husband real and solid happiness, which no Politics, no worldly reverses can change; it could not have lasted long as it was then, for after all, kind and excellent as Lord M. is, and kind as he was to me, it was but in Society that I had amusement, and I was only living on that superficial resource, which I then fancied was happiness!  Thank God! for me and others, this is changed, and I know what real happiness is—­V.  R.”  How did she know?  What is the distinction between happiness that is real and happiness that is felt?  So a philosopher—­Lord M. himself perhaps—­might have inquired.  But she was no philosopher, and Lord M. was a phantom, and Albert was beside her, and that was enough.

Happy, certainly, she was; and she wanted everyone to know it.  Her letters to King Leopold are sprinkled thick with raptures.  “Oh! my dearest uncle, I am sure if you knew how happy, how blessed I feel, and how proud I feel in possessing such a perfect being as my husband...” such ecstasies seemed to gush from her pen unceasingly and almost of their own accord.  When, one day, without thinking, Lady Lyttelton described someone to her as being “as happy as a queen,” and then grew a little confused, “Don’t correct yourself, Lady Lyttelton,” said Her Majesty.  “A queen is a very happy woman.”

But this new happiness was no lotus dream.  On the contrary, it was bracing, rather than relaxing.  Never before had she felt so acutely the necessity for doing her duty.  She worked more methodically than ever at the business of State; she watched over her children with untiring vigilance.  She carried on a large correspondence; she was occupied with her farm—­her dairy—­a whole multitude of household avocations—­from morning till night.  Her active, eager little body hurrying with quick steps after the long strides of Albert down the corridors and avenues of Windsor, seemed the very expression of her spirit.  Amid all the softness, the deliciousness of unmixed joy, all the liquescence, the overflowings of inexhaustible sentiment, her native rigidity remained.  “A vein of iron,” said Lady Lyttelton, who, as royal governess, had good means of observation, “runs through