Page:Life of Her Majesty Queen Victoria (IA lifeofhermajesty01fawc).pdf/248

 The Prince had seemed to gain strength with years, and in 1882 he married Princess Helen of Waldeck, sister of the present Queen-Regent of Holland. A little girl was born to him and his wife in 1883, named Alice, after the sister whose words of love have just been quoted; but a little son, born in 1884, did not see the light for some four months after his father's death. The Queen's loving, motherly tenderness protected and sustained her young daughter-in-law in her sorrow and loneliness.

Almost as much as for the death of her children, the Queen mourned the loss of the gallant General Gordon at Khartoum early in 1885. She wrote from Osborne to Miss Gordon in February of that year:—

A few weeks later, Miss Gordon presented her brother's Bible (which he had constantly carried with him) to the Queen, and again Her Majesty wrote a letter, vivid with her grief and shame and high appreciation of the hero whose life had been sacrificed. This second letter was left by Miss Gordon to the nation, and may now be seen, one of the most interesting of the collection of royal autographs, in the British Museum. The well-worn Bible now lies open in an enamel and crystal case, called the St. George's Casket, in the south corridor of the private apartments at Windsor.