Exultation, affection, gratitude, a profound sense of obligation, an unbounded pride--such were her emotions; and, colouring and intensifying the rest, there was something else.

At last, after so long, happiness--fragmentary, perhaps, and charged with gravity, but true and unmistakable none the less--had returned to her.

The unaccustomed feeling filled and warmed her consciousness.

When, at Buckingham Palace again, the long ceremony over, she was asked how she was, "I am very tired, but very happy," she said.
III And so, after the toils and tempests of the day, a long evening followed--mild, serene, and lighted with a golden glory.

For an unexampled atmosphere of success and adoration invested the last period of Victoria's life.