"Have you ever seen the prince?"
"Once. He was in England, I remember, a short time previous to the accession of her Majesty."
"Is he good looking?"
"Very. Of course you believe as I do, and as every one else does that Prince Albert of Saxe Coburg will——"
"Soon be Prince Albert of England."
"Hush! walls have ears!"
The servants having discovered the article of furniture which was the object of their search, left the room—greatly to the relief of Henry Holford, whose presence they never for a moment suspected.
Holford had thus accidentally learnt some information which served to guide his plans. The evening's entertainment was to take place in the Yellow Drawing Room—an apartment which he could not fail to recognise by the colour, as one which he had visited before day-break that morning. He had heard of Prince Albert, whom rumour had already mentioned as the happy being who had attracted the queen's favour. Every circumstance now lent its aid to induce the enthusiastic lad to resolve upon penetrating into the Yellow Drawing Room, by some means or another, during the afternoon.
It struck the intruder that if the queen intended to receive company in the Yellow Drawing-room in the evening, she would most probably welcome her illustrious guests from Germany in some other apartment. He knew, from the conversation of the two female servants, that the Grand Duke of Saxe-Coburg Gotha and Prince Albert, were to arrive at five: he presumed that the inmates of the palace would assemble in those points where they could command a view of the ducal cortège; and he came to the conclusion that the coast would be most clear for his purposes, at five o'clock.
Nor was he wrong in his conjectures; for scarcely had two minutes elapsed after the clock had proclaimed the hour of five, when Henry Holford was safely ensconced beneath a sofa in the Yellow Drawing Room.