"And this I give for final judgment and decree indissoluble."
Everybody remained wrapt, in speechless admiration at the ineffable wisdom of Pantagruel-Punch, who had thus settled the American Question. But what a shout went up to the Empyrean when he gently added:—
"To enable you to interpret this sentence aright, I present you with my
OUR QUEEN TO HER PEOPLE.
We open our New Volume with a record that will become historical. No more acceptable Christmas gift could have been bestowed upon a loyal and affectionate people than that which Queen Victoria has been pleased to present. It is the simple, warm, graceful expression of a Mother's "deep sense of the touching sympathy of the whole Nation on the occasion of the alarming illness of her dear son, the Prince of Wales." Thus writes our Sovereign, dating, happily, from Windsor Castle:—