My only happy time was going or driving out with you and Lehzen; then I could speak and look as I liked.

I escaped some years of imprisonment, which you, my poor darling sister, had to endure after I was married.

But God Almighty has changed both our destinies most mercifully, and has made us _so_ happy in our homes--which is the only real happiness in this life; and those years of trial were, I am sure, very useful to us both, though certainly not pleasant.

Thank God they are over!...

I was much amused in your last letter at your tracing the _quickness_ of our tempers in the female line up to Grandmamma,[6] but I must own that you are _quite right_!" [Footnote 6: Augusta Caroline Sophia, Dowager-Duchess of Saxe-Coburg-Saalfeld, a Princess of Reuss Ebersdorf (1757-1831).] But if there was little amusement, there was, on the other hand, great devotion; the Princess, as a child, had that peculiar combination of self-will and warm-heartedness which is apt to win for a child a special love from its elders.