Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/231

 had deprived the Queen of the constant companionship of this dearly loved daughter, yet the Princess continued to spend part of almost every year with her mother. She returned to England in November, 1862, and stayed with the Queen till after the birth of her first baby, in April, 1863. The Queen was a most tender nurse, and always took a special interest in the granddaughter and god-daughter who had been born under her roof. It was Princess Alice who encouraged the Queen to emerge a little from the seclusion to which she had clung since her widowhood. She promoted little mountain excursions, in which the Queen was induced to take part, in the autumn of 1863. She, and also the Princess Royal, accompanied the Queen in the same year to the ceremony of the unveiling of the Prince's statue at Aberdeen. It is easy to understand what a trying ordeal this must have been to the Queen. There were dense crowds, loyal and kindly, but silent and full of mournful sympathy; there was no music even, the bands having been forbidden to play,—such a contrast, as the Queen wrote, to "former blessed times." No wonder that she was "terribly nervous, and longed not to have to go through this fearful ordeal." The Queen had been present before this at family ceremonies, the marriages of Princess Alice in 1862, and of the Prince of Wales on March 10th, 1863; but the first of these had been of quite a private character, and in the second the Queen had taken no part, merely watching the service from the Royal Closet in St. George's Chapel, Windsor; but this was her first appearance since her