That evening there were fireworks and illuminations in all the principal cities. England shone literally from shore to shore, for a beacon fire was lighted on Malvern Hills, and in a moment, as its distant gleam shone on other hills, other beacons blazed, till from Land's End to the Shetland Islands it was rejoicingly written in letters of fire that for fifty years the realm had been under the rule of a pure and upright womanhood.
At last the day was fully ended. "I am very happy," said the Queen; and well she might be, for this day had shown her that she was sovereign, not only of the land and its treasures, but of the loving hearts of her subjects.
There had been only one drawback to the Queen's happiness during the Jubilee rejoicings, and that was the poor health of her favorite son-in-law, the Crown Prince of Germany. In the procession he had looked superbly well and strong, but his throat was giving him so much trouble that he remained in England the rest of the year, hoping that a change of climate would do him good.
Everyone loved "Our Fritz," as he was called in Germany, both his own countrymen and the English. His father, the Emperor, was over ninety and so feeble that he could not possibly live many months. Ever since that summer day on the hills of Balmoral when the Prince had given the sprig of white heather to the maiden of his choice, the Queen had hoped that Germany would unite under one emperor and that Prince Frederick William would become its ruler. The German states had united, and it was clear that the German throne would soon fall to her daughter's husband; but the physicians declared that his disease was incurable.
For several months the whole world watched for news of the beloved Emperor and his equally beloved son. Early in 1888 the Emperor died, and Queen Victoria's ambition of thirty years had come to pass; her daughter was Empress of Germany. But it was a sad accession to a throne, and the Queen forgot all about her ambitious hopes in her daughter's grief and her own. Hardly a day passed that she did not send some message of sympathy to the sorrowing wife. In three months the end came. The Emperor "Fritz," whose sufferings had been none the less because he sat on a throne, was dead. His son, the Frederick William Victor Albert who had given his young uncles so much trouble at the wedding of the Prince of Wales, now wore the German crown; but the Queen, instead of rejoicing in her daughter's being Empress of Germany, could only try as best she might to help her bear her loneliness.
