Three generations

96 A YOUNG COUPLE
the contrary, it was most respectful to all in authority.
Its charm to servant-maids and children lay in the
illustrations, not so much of the poor young Princess
in full dress and of Prince Leopold in elaborate
uniform, as of grim professional representations of
the embalmed remains of the dead in different chests
— little chests which must afterwards have been en-
closed in the larger coffin, the whole connected with
the dreary torchlight procession wending its way by
night down the " Long Walk " at Windsor.
There was another fantastic scrap of Court gossip
which took its place among the many tales of the wild
young Princes. My mother related it in connection
with Princess Mary, to whom it could never have
referred. Without question it was a version of a
similar romance which hung about the memory of
Princess Amelia, who fell a victim to consumption
in her twenty-ninth year. Apparently the story
had its origin in the pathetic last interview between
father and child. The Princess had sought to see the
King, her father, whose pet and darling she had been,
in private, had taken leave of him, and had given him
a ring she had worn, which she asked him to keep and
wear for her sake. But the parting with the child
of his old age was too much for the blind and ailing
man, who hastily withdrew as his tottering reason
gave way, never again to recover its balance.
Some Court chronicler found in these materials, sad
enough in themselves, ground for a thrilling drama.
It was said that Princess Amelia had sought to see
the King, her father, in order to confess to him her
private marriage to General Fitzroy, one of his
equerries, to entreat his forgiveness, and to bespeak
his protection for the child born of the marriage. It