All the world was abroad that day--great was the flow of good feeling, and mighty was the flow of good ale, while the whole air of the Kingdom was vibrating with the peal of merry marriage-bells. All through the land free dinners were provided for the poor--good roast beef, plum-pudding-- 'alf and 'alf fare--and I am afraid the Queen's pauper-subjects would have been unwilling to have the occasion indefinitely repeated, with such observances,--would not have objected to Her Majesty proving a female Henry VIII.
Victoria and Albert drove that afternoon more than twenty miles between ranks of frantically loyal, rejoicing people,--past countless festive decorations, and a world of "_V_"s and "_A_"s--under arches so gay that one wondered where and how at that season all the flowers and foliage were produced,--if nature had not hurried up her spring work, so as to be able to come to the wedding. The Queen turned now and then her happy face on her shouting subjects, in graceful acknowledgment of their sympathy with her happiness; but much of the time she was observed to be regarding her husband, intently or furtively. So she had betrayed her heart during She marriage ceremony, when, as an eye-witness records, she "was observed to look frequently at Prince Albert,--in fact, she scarcely ever took her eyes off him." I suppose she found him "goodly to look upon." It is certain that she worshiped him with her eyes, as well as with her heart and soul,--then and ever after. For the world, even for the Court, he grew, as the pitiless, pilfering years went by, a little too stout, and somewhat bald, while his complexion lost something of its fine coloring and smoothness, and his eyes their fulness,--but for her, he seems to have always kept the grace and glory of his youth. Even when he was dying-when the gray twilight of the fast-coming night was creeping over his face, clouding the light of his eyes, chilling the glow of his smile--his beauty was still undimmed for her. She says in her pathetic account of those sad moments--"his beautiful face, more beautiful than ever, is grown so thin."
But on this their wedding-day, death and death-bed partings were far enough from the thoughts of the royal lovers. Life was theirs,--young life, in all its fulness and richness of health, and hope, and joy, and that "perfect, love, which casteth out fear."