Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/152

 Bean's attempt he hurried up to town to see the Prince, and consult with him on what ought to be done. While he was in conversation with the Prince the Queen entered the room, and Peel's emotion was so great that his habitual self-control left him, and he burst into tears. When it is remembered that only a few months earlier Greville had said, "Peel is so shy he makes the Queen shy," it is impossible not to surmise that this touch of nature may have brought about the final breaking down of reserve and coldness between the Queen and her Prime Minister.

In various memoirs of the time, little pictures are given of "the Queen at Sea." She is a good sailor, and thoroughly enjoys the element over which Britannia rules. She likes sailors, and understands them. Greville tells that nothing could be more easy and agreeable than her demeanor on board her Royal yacht, "conversing all the time with perfect ease and good humor, and on all subjects, taking great interest, and very curious about everything in the ship, dining on deck in the midst of the sailors, making them dance, talking to the boatswain, and, in short, doing everything that was popular and ingratiating." He complains, however, that she was impatient, and always wanted to be going ahead, and to do everything quickly; whereas the genuine sailor has an unfathomable capacity for loafing. Lady Bloomfield, when Miss Georgina Liddell, attended the Queen as one of her Maids of Honor on a yachting cruise in 1843. She narrates how the Queen and her ladies settled themselves for reading and work in a very comfortable and sheltered place on deck, when they became aware that the position they had taken up was the subject of something like consternation to the captain and crew. The Queen laughingly inquired if there was about to be a mutiny? The captain in the same spirit replied