"It is not," she told him in 1863, "the Queen's SORROW that keeps her secluded.

It is her OVERWHELMING WORK and her health, which is greatly shaken by her sorrow, and the totally overwhelming amount of work and responsibility--work which she feels really wears her out.

Alice Helps was wonderfully struck at the Queen's room; and if Mrs.Martin will look at it, she can tell Mr.Martin what surrounds her.

From the hour she gets out of bed till she gets into it again there is work, work, work,--letter-boxes, questions, etc., which are dreadfully exhausting--and if she had not comparative rest and quiet in the evening she would most likely not be ALIVE.

Her brain is constantly overtaxed." It was too true.
III To carry on Albert's work--that was her first duty; but there was another, second only to that, and yet nearer, if possible, to her heart--to impress the true nature of his genius and character upon the minds of her subjects.