When the Court was at Windsor, the Duchess resided at
Frogmore, a very lovely place, belonging to the royal estate, and so near
the Castle that she was able to dine and lunch with Victoria almost
daily. Still the partial separation was a trial for a mother and daughter
so closely and tenderly attached, and they both took it hard,--as did,
about that time, Prince Albert his separation from his brother Ernest,
whose long visit was over. The Queen's account of the exceeding
sorrowfulness of that parting must now bring to the lips of the most
sentimental reader, though "a man and a brother," an unsympathetic smile--
unless he happens to remember that those were the earliest days of steam
on sea and land, and that journeys from England to any part of the
Continent were no light undertakings. So the brothers sung together a
mournful college song, and embraced, kissing one another on both cheeks,
doubtless, after the German fashion,--"poor Albert being pale as a sheet,
and his eyes full of tears." Ah, what would he have said could his
"prophetic soul" have beheld his son, Albert Edward, skipping from London
to Paris in eight hours--dashing about the Continent, from Copenhagen to
Cannes, from Brussels to Berlin--from Homburg to St.
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