THE KING AND QUEEN TO-DAY.

Colonist, Volume LI, Issue 12508, 8 April 1909, Page 4

THE KING AND QUEEN TO-DAY.

One looks at his King and Queen for the first time with a heap of interest (says tlie London correspondent or the -Sydney "Telegraph," describing the opening of Parliament). They you driving in their carriage in the 'streets, 1-well muffled up against the cold, and you see but little of -them But here, at this Opening ceremony, you' get time for a clbsfe ; scrutiny of the Empire's Royalty. They advance very slowly- up the carpeted way, through the crowded Royal Gallery, bowing fre,'quently and verjr gravely "to the standing throng oxveither side. And, seeing them clearly a few feet away, you realise,' as somehow you faileU to do before, from descriptions and portraits and -photographs, that the <Kiftg- arid Queen aro old. Your first and last impressions are -age and care. They pace very slowly } and with .profound dignity; yet as the Queen' bows she smiles- faintly — a weary smile. V v The King; his white beard - close-clipped, his head almost entirely bald, is very •stout without being cumbersome,., and in a sense robust ; Dut as you look at him ..you undei stand, how it is ..-that his slight colds cause much anxiety, ; -and lead to the instant cancellation of important engagements ; and, more than that, you admire the courage, which enables him to accomplish such' ordeals as his journey last week, in the depth of a northern winter, to Germany. His Majesty looks a good ten years older than any photograph I have ever seen of him, and the Queen . still more than that. The King, a pleasant-faced, stout, dignified old man, no Jonger active; the Queen still beautiful, but disappointing, not in herself, for her years are many, but because' she strikes you as so jnuch older and more care-worn than you have gathered from her recent portraits and. photographs. s She is still beautiful, but despite the fact that her hair is free from grey, her beauty is the beauty of age. All the bloomis gone, which is not, after all, ■al all wonderful, for is she not the ri arid-mother of two big boj'S.in the Navy?