on any public occasion there is always a hearty
welcome ready for her, and when she passes in
private along our streets, she leaves a train of
good temper as she goes, and men and women
look pleasanter, and perhaps feel happier as
her carriage drives past them. I had rather
have such a place as this in the good will of
such a people as the English than—be King of
Greece to-morrow. The fact is, we are all—and
especially those of us who say least about it—
skilled physiognomists, and we find that that
handsome countenance of the Princess Mary of
Cambridge agrees in all particulars with the
principles of the science by which we are guided.

The Princess of Prussia is another of these
general favourites and when the time came for
her to pass, with the little kilted youngster
clinging to her hand, that peculiar and faint
murmur of satisfaction which tells so much
was heard from end to end of this portion of
the church.

I am afraid that any ladies who may honour
me by reading these words, will expect me to
give an account of how these princesses, and
all the other ladies, were dressed, even to the
young princesses who took their part in the
procession so gravely and modestly. I had better
own at once that for the dresses I must refer to
the Court Newsman, or some other authority
on millinery, where they will be found better
described than they would be by me, even if
I had made notes as the wearers passed before
my eyes. I remember magnificent trains of
various glorious colours. I remember an
indistinct vision of white and gold, and pearls,
and feathers, and diamonds, and ribbons; but
anything more definite than this is altogether
beyond me, and out of reach; I remember, also,
that the ladies who bore the trains all appeared
to do so under protest, and to have a hearty
dislike for the encumbrance.

But the Bride is not here yet, though the
time is getting nearer and nearer to the particular
minute—for punctuality is a royal virtue—
when it is announced that she will appear. As
the last of those who accompany and attend
the family of the Queen disappear within the
screened-off portion of the church, the shrill
cry of the trumpets is heard no more, and the
triumphal march of Beethoven bursts magnificently
from the organ above the choir. And so
listening to that, and with a pleasant
remembrance of the procession that had just passed,
and more particularly—of the little princesses,
two walking side by side, and one, the eldest,
holding by the hand the last born of the Queen,
the smallest and most delicate of creatures,
moving with little precise steps as if to the
music of the trumpets, and with long fair hair
combed straight behind her back—of the only
married pair who appeared in the procession
together, the Princess Alice and her husband,
leading her with a tender care and affection
which it was very good to see—all these things
we had time to think about as the organ played,
and as we waited for the curtain to rise on the
next act of the splendid drama.

The trumpeters and heralds who had
accompanied the last to the entrance of the choir
having returned from its doorway, and ranged
themselves once more in order by the opposite
door, we knew that at last the Bridegroom had left
the castle, and was on his way; for faintly and far-
off we could hear the bands outside and in the
distance playing the national anthem, and
almost more faintly a still more impressive
sound. This was the repeated cheering of the
great multitude without, who lined the way
from the castle to the chapel entrance. This
distant music, and, still more, this distant cheering,
had a wonderful sound as we listened and
waited, and it was, perhaps, made the more
remarkable by the strange silence of so large a
body of people as we were, filling all the nave of
Saint George's Chapel. Presently the cheering
ceased, and the distant music too, and the
trumpeters who stood before the curtain drew
themselves up in line, and waited, with their
trumpets at their lips. The part of Bridegroom is
difficult to play in the wedding-drama, and one
which it is not possible to make much of. The
Prince of Wales was nervous when he entered
the chapel, and doubtless no one there thought
the less of him for being so, but rather the
more. The trumpeters, the heralds, and the
different officers of his household preceded him;
but it is doubtful whether any one present
saw much of them. In a drama of such
concentrated interest, the chief actors and the
popular favourites alone are thought of, and the
minor performers are in danger of losing the
fair share of attention which belongs to them as
their due. When the Prince of Wales appeared
in that western doorway, with his uncle, the
Duke of Saxe-Coburg, and his brother-in-law,
the Prince of Prussia, one on either side of him—
and two as gallant-looking gentlemen as ever
stepped they were—the three, covered from
head to foot with the splendid mantle of the
Garter, would have made a study that Paul
Veronese or Tintoretto might have made
something fine of.

It was impossible to sit by and look on at
such a scene as this, without being continually
reminded of other royal pageants held in other
times on this same ground. How much there
was in this that was akin to them, and at
the same time how much that was widely
different! Those rows of beefeaters might have
kept the line, just as they stood, for a royal
procession in the days of Henry the Eighth, or of
Charles the Second. The general effect of those
splendid robes and magnificent trains and flashing
jewels must have been much the same in the
older period; and where, then, did the great
difference lie? It lay principally in this: that one
could really respect the actors in this scene. No
doubt, the people of the fifteenth or seventeenth
century, were much impressed by the court
pageants of their own day, and stood by, looking
on with awe as princes, nobles, and courtiers
passed in array before them; but how should
we of this time look (were the thing possible)
upon a procession, in which Wolsey took a part,