But she urged in vain.
Her political activity, no more than her social seclusion, was approved by the public.

As the years passed, and the royal mourning remained as unrelieved as ever, the animadversions grew more general and more severe.

It was observed that the Queen's protracted privacy not only cast a gloom over high society, not only deprived the populace of its pageantry, but also exercised a highly deleterious effect upon the dressmaking, millinery, and hosiery trades.

This latter consideration carried great weight.

At last, early in 1864, the rumour spread that Her Majesty was about to go out of mourning, and there was much rejoicing in the newspapers; but unfortunately it turned out that the rumour was quite without foundation.