Yet Her Majesty's eyes, crushing as they could be, were less crushing than her mouth.

The self-will depicted in those small projecting teeth and that small receding chin was of a more dismaying kind than that which a powerful jaw betokens; it was a self--will imperturbable, impenetrable, unintelligent; a self-will dangerously akin to obstinacy.

And the obstinacy of monarchs is not as that of other men.
Within two years of her accession, the storm-clouds which, from the first, had been dimly visible on the horizon, gathered and burst.
Victoria's relations with her mother had not improved.

The Duchess of Kent, still surrounded by all the galling appearances of filial consideration, remained in Buckingham Palace a discarded figure, powerless and inconsolable.

Sir John Conroy, banished from the presence of the Queen, still presided over the Duchess's household, and the hostilities of Kensington continued unabated in the new surroundings.
Lady Flora Hastings still cracked her malicious jokes; the animosity of the Baroness was still unappeased.