There were great festivities--illuminations, state concerts, immense crowds, and general rejoicings.

At Windsor a magnificent banquet was given to the bride and bridegroom in the Waterloo room, at which, Victoria noted in her diary, "everybody was most friendly and kind about Vicky and full of the universal enthusiasm, of which the Duke of Buccleuch gave us most pleasing instances, he having been in the very thick of the crowd and among the lowest of the low." Her feelings during several days had been growing more and more emotional, and when the time came for the young couple to depart she very nearly broke down--but not quite.

"Poor dear child!" she wrote afterwards.

"I clasped her in my arms and blessed her, and knew not what to say.

I kissed good Fritz and pressed his hand again and again.