“After dinner we women went down with the Queen to her boudoir, where an Egyptian-looking servant wearing a _tarboosh_ handed us coffee of surpassing aroma, and Her Majesty showed us her beloved little Japanese dog and some of the pretty things about the room. She then asked us to see her bedroom (which I had already seen that morning) and the little dog’s basket where he sleeps near her bed. She is still extremely beautiful. Her figure is youthful and shapely, and all her movements are queenly. The King had quite a long talk with Will about this dreadful Boer War which is causing us all so much anxiety, after we went up again. He then came over to me, and after a few commonplaces he came nearer and in a confidential tone began about Will. I think he is fond of him. What he said was kind, and I knew he wanted me to repeat his sympathetic words to my husband afterwards. He spoke of him as a ‘splendid soldier.’ I know he had in his mind the painful trial Will had gone through. It was late when Their Majesties bade us good-night.
“_March 8th._--The great day of the launch of H.M.S. _Queen_. I wonder if the hearts of the sailors beat anxiously to-day at all! A quieter, more unemotional-looking set of men than those naval bigwigs could nowhere be seen in the world. But, first of all, there was the medal-giving at the R.N. Barracks, where Ladies Poore and Charles Scott, Mrs. Jackson and myself had to receive the King and Queen by the side of our respective husbands on a raised daïs in the centre of the huge parade ground. It was very cold, and the Queen told me she envied me my fur-lined coat. Will said I missed an opportunity of making a pendant to Sir Walter Raleigh! The function was very long, for the King had to give a medal to each one of the three hundred bluejackets and marines who passed before him in single file. At the launching place we all assembled on a great platform, and there in front of us stood the huge hull of the battleship, the ram projecting over the little table on which the Queen was to cut the ropes. That red-painted ram was garlanded with flowers, and the bottle hung from the garland, completely hidden under a covering of roses. It contained red Australian wine, a very sensible change from the French champagne of former times. Down below an immense crowd of workmen waited, some of them right under the ship, and all round, in the different stands, were dense masses of people. We were soon joined by three German naval grandees and two Japanese _leprechauns_, one an admiral, a toadlike-looking creature in a uniform entirely copied from ours. Our new allies are not handsome. Then came the Bishop of Exeter, in robes and cap and with a peaked beard, a living Holbein in the dress of Cranmer. How could I, a painter, not delight in that figure? I told a friend that bishop had no business to be alive, but ought to be a painting by Holbein, on panel. What does she do but whisk off straight to him and Mrs. Bishop and tell them! Our privileged group kept swelling with additions of officers in full glory and smart women in lovely frocks, and bouquets were brought in, and everything was to me perfectly charming. Monarchy calls much beauty into existence. Long may it endure!