“Then came the burst of the ‘Te Deum.’ The silver trumpets at St. Peter’s seemed as nothing to the trumpet-shout which gave effect to the exultant sentences, pealing triumphantly through the arches, and contrasting with the single voices of solitary choristers thrilling alone at intervals—voices far, far away, like the tenderest echo. The Queen did not shed a tear, and held a book all the time, but once sat down as if it was too much for her, and often looked round at the Crown Princess—who stood nearest, very sweet and sympathetic—with a look of ‘What this is to us!’ Princess Beatrice and the Grand Duchess Sergius cried the whole time.
“A striking figure throughout the entire service was the Crown Prince of Germany, especially when kneeling erect like a knight, in jackboots, but with folded hands and a simplicity of unwavering devotion.
“Very solemnly, audibly everywhere, the Archbishop of Canterbury read the prayers—the thanksgiving for all the mercies of the reign, the petition for eternal life. There was another psalm, sung most gloriously, then an anthem with a burst of trumpets in the ‘To be king for the Lord thy God.’ Lastly, the benediction, in which the Queen bent low, lower, lower, as the ‘Amen,’ sung over and over again, died away in vanishing cadences.
“When it was quite silent, in a great hush, she rose up, and a beautiful ray of sunshine shot through the stained windows and laid itself at her feet, and then passed on and gilded the head of the Prince of Wales.
“She beckoned to him afterwards, and he came and kissed her hand, but she kissed him twice most affectionately. Then came the Crown Prince and the Grand Duke of Hesse, who kissed her hands, and then the Duke of Connaught. When the Queen saw him, maternal feelings overcame those of royalty, and she embraced him fervently, and then, evidently fearing that the last two princes might be hurt, she called them back, and kissed them too, and so all the princes, who came in order. She was especially cordial to Prince Albert Victor, and heartily kissed Lord Lorne, who had bent down, as if he did not expect it.
“Meantime the Crown Princess stood by the step of the throne on the other side, and I think the most touching part of the whole was when she bent low to kiss her mother’s hand and was folded in a close embrace, and so all the daughters and the grand-daughters—such a galaxy of graceful girls—bent to kiss the hand, and were kissed in turn.
“Then the Queen went away, bowing all down the choir, and the flood of her youthful descendants ebbed after her.
“I felt I scarcely cared to see the procession afterwards, but it was very fine. How a past age is repeating itself! One sees this in comparing the newspaper accounts of the procession yesterday with the contemporary tracts about the entry of Queen Elizabeth, telling how ‘in all her passage she did show her most gracious love towards the people in general,’ and how the citizens, when they saw her, ‘took such comfort, that with tears they expressed the same.’ I am one of the 400 asked to meet the 100 royalties at the Foreign Office, but cannot manage arranging levée dress properly in time.”
“June 23, 1887.—This is a postscript to my last.
“Nothing could exceed the orderliness, good-nature, and merriment of the immense crowd at the illuminations on the evening of the Jubilee day. I took Letitia Hibbert and her friend Miss Robertson to see the best from Hyde Park, and then along the Green Park, where movement was quite easy, and the effect of the houses bathed in a halo of coloured light very beautiful through the dark massy foliage.