“‘Can you take us on board the University barge?’
“‘No-o-o-o, I think not.’
“‘But my companion is the Prince Royal of Sweden and Norway.’
“Upon which the boy very soon found that he could take a Prince anywhere, and proud he probably was afterwards to narrate to whom he had been acting cicerone. In the barge, a number of undergraduates were looking at the Prince’s portrait in the Graphic. He looked at it too, over their shoulders, but they did not recognise him.
“It was a fatiguing day, and I felt greatly the utter apathy and want of interest in all the Swedes, who scarcely noticed anything, admired nothing, and remembered nothing.”
“June 18.—Again to Oxford with the Prince. This time the town was in gala costume, and we drove through a street hung with flags, and through crowds of people waiting to see the Prince, to the Vice-Chancellor’s Lodge at Pembroke. Here the Prince dressed, and I went on at once with his gentlemen to the Theatre, where places were reserved for us just under the Vice-Chancellor’s throne. My Swedish companions were amused with the undergraduates’ expression of their likes and dislikes, till the great moment came and the great doors were thrown open, and, amid a flood of sunlight, the procession streamed in headed by all the gold maces. Immediately after the Vice-Chancellor came my Prince, looking tall and handsome in his white uniform with the crimson robe over it, and perfectly royal. I knew that he felt nervous, but he could not have been half as nervous as I was. He played his part, however, perfectly. He received his degree standing by the Vice-Chancellor’s side, and the whole body of undergraduates sang a little impromptu song, to the effect of ‘He’s a charming Swedish boy.’
“We adjourned from the Theatre to the green court of All Souls, where, in the sunlit quadrangle, I brought up, one after another, all the principal persons to be presented to the Prince—Lord and Lady Dufferin, Rachel and Sir Arthur Gordon, Lord Selborne, the Dean of Christ Church and Mrs. Liddell, &c. There was a luncheon for 300 in the All-Souls library, and afterwards we drove with Mrs. Evans, the Vice-Chancellor’s wife, to the Masonic fête in the lovely Wadham garden, and then paid official visits, before leaving, to the Vice-Chancellor and Dean.
“In the evening I was with the Prince at Mrs. E. Guiness’s ball, on which £6000 are said to have been wasted. It was a perfect fairy-land, ice pillars up to the ceiling, an avenue of palms, a veil of stephanotis from the staircase, and you pushed your way through a brake of papyrus to the cloak-room.”
“June 19.—We dined with the Aberdeens. I went before the Prince, and was with Aberdeen to receive him at the door, and then presented a quantity of people—Lord and Lady Carnarvon, Lord and Lady Brownlow, Lady Balfour, Dowager Lady Aberdeen, &c. The London Scottish Volunteers played soft music during dinner. Soon afterwards the Prince went away to the Scandinavian ball, rather disappointing many people who came to see him in the evening.”
“June 20.—Oh, what a shock it has been that, while the balls last night were going on, telegrams announced the death of the dear young Prince Imperial! I am sure I cried for him like a nearest relation; there was something so very cordial and attaching in him, and there is something so unspeakably terrible in his death. The Prince was overwhelmed, and could not dine at Lowther Lodge, where there was a large party expressly to meet him, but he was quite right.”