After that one dance she
"went to bed." Doubtless her good mother thought she had had fatigue and
excitement enough for one day; but it must have been hard for such a
dance-loving girl to take her quivering feet out of the ball-room so
early, and for such a grand personage as she already was, just referred
to in the Mayor's speech, as "destined to mount the throne of these
realms," to be sent away like a child, to mount a solemn, beplumed four-
poster, and to try to sleep, with that delicious dance-music still
ringing in her ears.
Greville also relates a sad Court story connected with the young
Princess, and describes a scene which would be too painful for me to
reproduce, except that it reveals, in a striking manner, Victoria's
tender love for and close sympathy with her mother. It seems that the
King's jealous hostility to the Duchess of Kent had grown with his decay,
and strengthened with his senility, till at last it culminated in a sort
of declaration of war at his own table. The account is given by Greville
_second-hand_, and so, very likely, over-colored, though doubtless true
in the main. The King invited the Duchess and Princess to Windsor to
join in the celebration of his birthday, which proved to be his last.
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