The queen and her court have come from chapel, to meet the royal
absentee at the great gate: the consort, who was to his gracious majesty
like an elder sister rather than a wife, bends down, not to his knees,
but yet she bends, to kiss the hand of her royal husband. She is a fair,
fat woman, no longer young, scarcely comely; but with a charm of
manners, a composure, and a _savoir faire_ that causes one to regard her
as mated, not matched to the little creature in that cocked-hat, which
he does not take off even when she stands before him. The pair,
nevertheless, embrace: it is a triennial ceremony performed when the
king goes or returns from Hanover, but suffered to lapse at other times;
but the condescension is too great: and Caroline ends, where she began:
'gluing her lips to the ungracious hand held out to her in evident
ill-humour.
They turn, and walk through the court, then up the grand staircase, into
the queen's apartment. The king has been swearing all the way at England
and the English, because he has been obliged to return from Hanover,
where the German mode of life and new mistresses were more agreeable to
him than the English customs and an old wife.
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