Read it through once
Another characteristic of the Prince was his good manners. The "first gentleman in Europe" always knew how to be pleasant without being familiar, dignified without being pompous, genial without being free. Myriads of stories are told in this connection. At the skating and hockey parties on the Sandringham lakes the farmers' wives and daughters were included and no Duchess in the land would be handed a cup of tea with more courtly manner by the Royal host than would the wife of a tenant on his estates. His servants, in houses and farms and stables, in sport or travel, at home and abroad, were treated in such a way as to make every one of them wish to serve the Prince for a life-time. No more charming incident is on record than the way in which His Royal Highness approached Mrs. Gladstone at the state funeral of her great husband, bowed low before her and kissed her proffered hand. Whether in high circles, or in those of ordinary people, in expected surroundings or amid unexpected conditions, the Prince seemed to always retain this faculty of politeness in the true sense of the word--a product of heart and mind rather than of mere instruction or habit.