Affection, gratitude, the natural reactions to the unqualified devotion of a lively young cousin who was also a queen--such feelings possessed him, but the ardours of reciprocal passion were not his.

Though he found that he liked Victoria very much, what immediately interested him in his curious position was less her than himself.

Dazzled and delighted, riding, dancing, singing, laughing, amid the splendours of Windsor, he was aware of a new sensation--the stirrings of ambition in his breast.

His place would indeed be a high, an enviable one! And then, on the instant, came another thought.

The teaching of religion, the admonitions of Stockmar, his own inmost convictions, all spoke with the same utterance.