THE PRINCESS ALICE AND THE PRINCE CONSORT.

Hawke's Bay Herald, Volume XXI, Issue 5336, 21 March 1879, Page 3

THE PRINCESS ALICE AND THE PRINCE CONSORT.

A correspondent sends the New Zealand Herald the following extract from the Northern Whig of several years back :— "There has reached us/ our contemporary wrote, "from abroad a most interesting extract from a letter which was written by a member of the Queen's household shortly after the death of Prince Albert. The extremely confidential position which the writer held at the time not only gives the assurance of perfect reliability, but invests the following lines with a very special interest :— ' The last Sundaj he passed on earth was a very blessed one for the Princess Alice to look back upon. He was very ill and very weak, and she spent the afternoon alone with him while the others went to church. He begged to have his sofa drawn to the window, that he might see the sky and the clouds sailing past. He then asked her to play to him, and she went through several of his favorite hymns and chorals. After she had played some time she looked IV round and saw him lying back, his hands folded as if in prayer, and his eyes shut. He lay so long without moving that she thought he had fallen asleep. Silently he looked up and smiled. She said, " Were you asleep, dear papa?" "Oh no," he answered, •" only I have such sweet thoughts." During his illness his hands were often folded in prayer ; and when he did not speak, hia serene face showed that the "happy thoughts'* were with him to the end. The Princess Alice's fortitude has amazed us all. She saw . from the first that both her father's and mother's firmness depended upon her firmness, and she set herself to the duty. He loved to speak openly of his condition, and had many wishes to express. He loved to hear hymns and prayers. He could not speak to the Queen of himself, for she could not bear to listen, and; shut her eyes to the danger. His daughter saw that she must act differently, and she never let her voice falter or shed a single tear in his presence. She sat by him, listened to all he said, repeated hymns, and then, when she could bear it no longer, would walk calmly to the door, and then rush away to her room, returning soon with the same calm and pale face without any appearance of the agitation she had gone through.' "