In character she was very like her father--to whose soul hers was so
knit, that, when in her last illness, the anniversary of his death came
round, she seemed to hear his call, and went to him at once in child-
like obedience. She took that fatal illness--the diphtheria--from a dear
child in a kiss, "the kiss of death," as Lord Beaconsfield called it.
The Rev. Norman McLeod has left a record of the widowed Queen's first
visit to Balmoral. It seems he thought she was too unreconciled to her
loss, and felt it his duty to preach what he believed to be "truth in
God's sight, and that which I believe she needed," he said, "though I
felt it would be very trying for her to receive it." She did receive it
very sweetly, and wrote him "a kind, tender letter of thanks for it," She
afterwards summoned him to the castle, and to her own room. He writes:
"She was alone. She met me with an unutterably sad expression, which
filled my eyes with tears, and at once began to speak about the Prince.
... She spoke of his excellencies--his love, his cheerfulness; how he was
everything to her. She said she never shut her eyes to trials, but liked
to look them in the face; how she would never shrink from duty, but that
all was at present done mechanically; that her highest ideas of purity
and love were obtained from him, and that God could not be displeased
with her love.
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