Prince Albert was with her, of course, and she looked
even prouder and happier than usual. She had found yet new honors for
herself and for him,--the most noble and ancient orders of Maternity and
Paternity,--exceeding old, and yet always new.
That day the young Prince may have felt glowing in his heart a sweet
prescience of the peculiar comfort and joy he afterwards found in the
loving devotion and noble character of his firstborn, that little
blessing that _would_ come, though "only a girl."
That day the Queen wore in her diadem a new jewel, a "pearl of great
price,"--a pure little human soul.
That faithful stand-by, King Leopold, came over to stand as chief sponsor
at the christening of the Princess Royal,--which took place at Buckingham
Palace, on the anniversary of her mother's marriage. The little girl, who
received the names of Victoria Adelaide Mary Louisa, is said by her
father to have behaved "with great propriety and like a Christian."
So ended the first year of Queen Victoria's married life. To say it had
been a happy year would seem, after the records we have, to put a very
inadequate estimate on its degree of harmony and content--and yet it were
much to say of any marriage, during the trying period in which many of
the tastes and habits of two separate lives must be harmonized, and some
heroically abandoned.
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