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There was a moment when the Queen’s Twin could not go on and neither of her listeners could ask a question.

“Prince Albert was sitting right beside her in the carriage,” she continued. “Oh, he was a beautiful man! Yes, dear, I saw ’em both together just as I see you now, and then she was gone out o’ sight in another minute, and the common crowd was all spread over the place pushin’ an’ cheerin’. ‘T was some kind o’ holiday, an’ the carpenter and I got separated, an’ then I found him again after I did n’t think I should, an’ he was all for makin’ a day of it, and goin’ to show me all the sights; he ‘d been in London before, but I did n’t want nothin’ else, an’ we went back through the streets down to the waterside an’ took the boat. I remember I mended an old coat o’ my Albert’s as good as I could, sittin’ on the quarter-deck in the sun all that afternoon, and ‘t was all as if I was livin’ in a lovely dream. I don’t know how to explain it, but there hasn’t been no friend I’ve felt so near to me ever since.”

One could not say much–only listen. Mrs. Todd put in a discerning question now and then, and Mrs. Martin’s eyes shone brighter and brighter as she talked. What a lovely gift of imagination and true affection was in this fond old heart! I looked about the plain New England kitchen, with its wood-smoked walls and homely braided rugs on the worn floor, and all its simple furnishings. The loud-ticking clock seemed to encourage us to speak; at the other side of the room was an early newspaper portrait of Her Majesty the Queen of Great Britain and Ireland. On a shelf below were some flowers in a little glass dish, as if they were put before a shrine.

“If I could have had more to read, I should have known ‘most everything about her,” said Mrs. Martin wistfully. “I ‘ve made the most of what I did have, and thought it over and over till it came clear. I sometimes seem to have her all my own, as if we ‘d lived right together. I ‘ve often walked out into the woods alone and told her what my troubles was, and it always seemed as if she told me ‘t was all right, an’ we must have patience. I ‘ve got her beautiful book about the Highlands; ‘t was dear Mis’ Todd here that found out about her printing it and got a copy for me, and it’s been a treasure to my heart, just as if ‘t was written right to me. I always read it Sundays now, for my Sunday treat. Before that I used to have to imagine a good deal, but when I come to read her book, I knew what I expected was all true. We do think alike about so many things,” said the Queen’s Twin with affectionate certainty. “You see, there is something between us, being born just at the some time; ‘t is what they call a birthright. She ‘s had great tasks put upon her, being the Queen, an’ mine has been the humble lot; but she’s done the best she could, nobody can say to the contrary, and there ‘s something between us; she’s been the great lesson I ‘ve had to live by. She’s been everything to me. An’ when she had her Jubilee, oh, how my heart was with her!”

“There, ‘t would n’t play the part in her life it has in mine,” said Mrs. Martin generously, in answer to something one of her listeners had said. “Sometimes I think, now she’s older, she might like to know about us. When I think how few old friends anybody has left at our age, I suppose it may be just the same with her as it is with me; perhaps she would like to know how we came into life together. But I ‘ve had a great advantage in seeing her, an’ I can always fancy her goin’ on, while she don’t know nothin’ yet about me, except she may feel my love stayin’ her heart sometimes an’ not know just where it comes from. An’ I dream about our being together out in some pretty fields, young as ever we was, and holdin’ hands as we walk along. I ‘d like to know if she ever has that dream too. I used to have days when I made believe she did know, an’ was comin’ to see me,” confessed the speaker shyly, with a little flush on her cheeks; “and I ‘d plan what I could have nice for supper, and I was n’t goin’ to let anybody know she was here havin’ a good rest, except I ‘d wish you, Almira Todd, or dear Mis’ Blackett would happen in, for you ‘d know just how to talk with her. You see, she likes to be up in Scotland, right out in the wild country, better than she does anywhere else.”