indeed, she has now and then been reproached by jealous champions of the
English Establishment for undue graciousness towards the Kirk and its
ministers.

For this grand but solemn ceremony at Kensington--rendered the more
solemn by the fact that while it was going on the great bell of St.
Paul's was tolling for the dead King,--the young Queen was dressed very
simply, in mourning.

She seems to have thought of everything, for she sent for Lord Albemarle,
and after reminding him that according to law and precedent she must be
proclaimed the next morning at 10 o'clock, from a certain window of St.
James' Palace, requested him to provide for her a suitable conveyance and
escort. She then bowed gravely and graciously to the Princes, Archbishops
and Cabinet Ministers, and left the room, as she had entered it--alone.




CHAPTER VIII.

The last day of Victoria's real girlhood--Proclaimed Queen from St.
James' Palace--She holds her first Privy Council--Comments upon her
deportment by eye-witnesses--Fruits of her mother's care and training.


It seems to me that the momentous day just described was the last of
Victoria's real girlhood; that premature womanhood was thrust upon her
with all the power, grandeur, and state of a Queen Regnant. I wonder if,
weary and nervously exhausted as she must have been, she slept much, when