When she knew that the end was inevitable, she seemed, by a pathetic instinct, to divest herself of her royalty, and to shrink, with hushed gentleness, beside him, a woman and nothing more.

"I send some Osborne primroses," she wrote to him with touching simplicity, "and I meant to pay you a little visit this week, but I thought it better you should be quite quiet and not speak.

And I beg you will be very good and obey the doctors." She would see him, she said, "when we, come back from Osborne, which won't be long." "Everyone is so distressed at your not being well," she added; and she was, "Ever yours very aff'ly V.R.I." When the royal letter was given him, the strange old comedian, stretched on his bed of death, poised it in his hand, appeared to consider deeply, and then whispered to those about him, "This ought to be read to me by a Privy Councillor.".