had anything to do with the sympathy and affection and devotion which to the end of his life she paid to Mr. Gladstone. It is said by one who knew her well that, so far as could be ascertained, she had never allowed the public to divine anything of her political sympathies, except on two occasions. The first was when she was a mere child she longed to intervene to save her country from German attack; the other was the marked preference she always showed to Mr. Gladstone, who was a courtier to his finger-tips where she was concerned. Nothing could be more charming than the deference he paid to the Princess, and the

before the whole of the Nile Valley would be under the protection of the English flag. They were entertained royally by Ismail Pasha, who with all his faults never hesitated to spend the bondholders' money in providing lavish entertainments for his royal guests. They went up the Nile on a splendid dahabeah, making excursions to the various points of interest in the vicinity of the river. One of the excursions which the Princess most enjoyed was that which she made to the royal tombs at Karnak. It is recorded that she rode on that occasion a milk-white ass, caparisoned in crimson velvet

and gold, while the Prince was mounted upon a grey mule. The young pair must have made a pretty picture in their pictu resque Oriental setting, but whether any artist or photographer preserved the scene I do not know. On their return to Cairo, where they were escorted by M. de Lesseps through the Suez Canal, they rejoined the Ariadne and sailed for Constantinople. In those days the Sultan had not yet fallen out of favour with the English public, although the sands in the hour-glass were running rapidly down. Before seven years were over Mr. Gladstone's Bulgarian Atrocity pamphlet had shattered the Anglo-Turkish Alliance and completed what the failure to pay the Turkish coupon had already begun. In those days also the Sultan was accustomed to keep the infidels at a distance, but he relaxed the severity of his rule so far as to give a State dinner to the Prince and Princess at the Palace. At Constantinople for a time the Princess ceased to be Royal Highness, and became plain Mrs. Williams, and with her husband, "Mr. Williams," walked through the bazaars of Stamboul. Still more interesting was the visit which the Princess paid to the ladies of the Sultan's harem, that strange, mysterious place so seldom entered by a Christian foot. After bidding cordial adieux to the Commander of the Faithful they sailed for Sebastopol, and visited all the battlefields of the Crimea, and then returned via Constantinople to Athens, where they were received by King George, and one of those

was decided to see what could be done by a prolonged tour in the East. The Prince and Princess left England in November, visited the Emperor and Empress of the French at Compiègne, where the Prince and his host were nearly run over by a stag, which suddenly bolting across their path, cannoned against the Prince's horse and knocked them both completely over. From France they went to Denmark, where the Princess spent her birthday on the Ist December. From France they travelled to Berlin, and thence to Trieste, where they took ship for Alexandria. From thence they travelled up the Nile, little dreaming how few years would pass

family reunions took place which were of but rare Occurrence, so numerously scattered were the Danish princes and princesses. After a short rest at Corfu they returned to England. The six months' cruise was a great success, and the Princess found her health quite re-established.

Unfortunately, as often happens, no sooner was the wife quite well than the husband took ill. The memorable illness of the Prince did not, it is true, immediately follow the return from abroad, but in the record of the royal household there is no event of supreme importance, between the return of

the royal pair from the East and the attack of typhoid fever which made Sandringham. the centre of the world's interest for many weeks. It was a great ordeal, and one which for many days seemed likely to result in the death of the HeirApparent. During the whole of that long agony the gracious. form of the Princess of Wales nursing at the sick-bed-which it was feared would soon be the deathbed of her husbandphotographed itself indelibly upon the mind of the nation. Before the Prince's illness, the Prince and Princess had been like other princes and princesses, objects of admiration and of sympathy. After that illness they were taken into the heart of the nation as no Prince or Princess had been since the days of Princess Charlotte. It is only occasional glimpses which the outside public can gain of the interior of a sick-room, but every such glimpse always

The other relates to the groom who was smitten with the same illness as that which laid low his master. Every day messages were sent to the bedside of the humble patient. She visited him when she could spare time from her husband's bedside, and when at last the poor fellow died, she erected a tombstone over his grave in the churchyard with the inscription " One was taken and the other left." Together with her husband she attended the great thanksgiving service at St. Paul's on February 27, walking down the cathedral on the left hand of the Queen. The national anxiety concerning the illness of

the Prince of Wales had caused almost every one to forget that, just before the Prince took ill, the Princess's last child was born, and died, living for only twenty-four hours. The death of this little one of one day old was the only occasion on which death had entered the Sandringham household.

Happy are those nations that have no history. Happy are those families whose life runs on unbroken by any of the great tragedies which make their existence visible to mankind. There is little in the life of the Princess between the all but fatal illness of her husband in 1871 until twenty years later, when the death

of the Duke of Clarence made the sorrowing and bereaved mother once more a centre of national sympathy. She was devotedly attached to her eldest boy, and was almost heartbroken when he was suddenly cut down and she was left desolate. Her preface to the sermon written by Canon Fleming is notable as almost the only thing she has ever written that has been printed.

revealed the Princess of Wales doing what she ought to have done, saying what she was expected to say, and acting in every respect as a tender wife and loving mother. Two episodes in the whole of that trying period stand out still vividly. One was her message to the clergyman at the church at Sandringham, when she wrote: "My husband being, thank God, somewhat better, I am coming to church. I must leave, I fear, before the service is concluded, that I may watch by his side. Can you not say a few words of prayer in the early part of the service, that I may join with you in prayer for my husband?"

From that time onward there has been but little to record of the Queen's life. Her Majesty has hitherto practically not existed so far as English politics are concerned. Her life has been that of a wife, a mother, a housekeeper, and the head of English society. It is impossible, therefore, in writing of her to describe any long series of circumstances in which she directly or indirectly affected public life or imperial development. Yet it would be absurd to say that she has lived a suppressed life. She has spent nearly forty years in the

reflection of the fierce light that beats upon a throne, and she has probably been the occasion for fewer newspaper paragraphs than any conspicuous lady in the land. She has come to be regarded as a kind of negative abstract of all the virtues and all the graces, a stately and beautiful figure in the masque of modern life, a charming hostess, a devoted mother, one who attracts the love of all who know her, and who has apparently no enemy in the world. When that is said, nearly all is said. If the veil of privacy behind which her life in this country has been spent could be lifted, no doubt there would be an endless store of

anecdotes illustrative of character, sayings full of the quiet good sense which dominates her, and letters any one of which would give the reader a better glimpse into her real nature than any amount of writing by other people. But the Queen, although compelled to live very much in public, has ever cherished the privacy of her home life. Still there some things of which it is possible to speak, even in the domesticities of the semi-regal domain in which she has reigned as Queen Sandringham, to which allusion may be made without offence, more especially as the subject has been repeatedly dwelt upon by writers in English periodicals.

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Here, for instance, is a pretty incident which will bear telling again, as it was told in the Woman at Home:

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Crossing the hall of Marlborough House late one afternoon just before Christmas, she saw delicate-looking girl standing there waiting. Noticing her tired expression and her modest demeanour, the Princess asked her to sit down and inquired her business.

Photograph by

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address, and gave the basket to her to take home. Christmas morning what was the girl's astonishment to receive a handsome new sewing machine with a paper attached to it bearing the words, "A Christmas gift from Alexandra."

Life at Sandringham has been so frequently described and the interior and exterior of Sandringham House have been so repeatedly photographed, that the public has long ere this been familiarised with the furnishing of almost every room and the aspect of almost every nook and corner of the grounds. Without traversing this very well-beaten path, it may be useful to recall one of the most interesting

She had brought some little garments for children, which the Princess had ordered to be made by the then new-fashioned sewing machine. The Princess took the girl, who was quite ignorant of who her conductor was, into her own room, examined the garments, and praising the neatness of the work, asked who did them. The girl replied that she had made them. She had an invalid mother to support, and she hoped by becoming an expert and good worker on the new machines that she might be able to save enough from the shop, which took her away from home all day, to purchase a machine of her own, when she might be able to earn a little more than bare bread for her mother. The Princess rang the bell, and ordered a basket to be brought with some wine, oranges, and biscuits in it, asked the girl's

articles ever written about Sandringham, which appeared some eight years ago, and which probably has been forgotten even by most of those who read it. I refer to the charming paper contributed by Mr. Frank Jessop to the Idler in 1893, concerning the pets of the then Princess of Wales. It is a good thing for human beings to have pets, and few things afford a better insight into character than the affection which human beings bestow upon their friends in fur and feather. The range of Queen Alexandra's pets very wide, wider even than the range of those of the late Sovereign, whose menagerie of four-footed pets at Windsor has defrequently been scribed. In one very essential particular there is a difference

Queens. Her late Majesty could never tolerate the harmless necessary tabby. When she could bring herself to stroke a kitten, that was the extent of her connection with the cat tribe. Her love for dogs, on the other hand, was very catholic and intense. Queen Alexandra divides her affections equally between both dogs and cats, and extends her devotion to horses, cockatoos and doves. Mr. Jessop, who seems to have visited Sandringham with carte blanche to see and describe everything that he could find on the premises in the shape of either bird or beast, was delighted to see, before he entered the house, a light wire aviary, inhabited by about twenty pure white doves, who looked lovely against a background of scarlet geraniums. In another cage on the left were some more doves, and some very beautiful, shy looking Australian birds, of small size,

and deliciously soft colouring. All these, he says, were special pets of the Princess, who always fed them with her own hands. Proceeding further in his researches, Mr. Jessop came upon a curious character of a bird in the shape of " Cocky," the cockatoo who for from fifteen to nineteen years had been the privileged occupant of the Princess's dressing-room. He was a somewhat disreputable bird, who in warm weather persisted, despite all persuasions to the contrary, in denuding himself of every feather on his person, with the exception of those on his head, neck, and tail. In 1892 his voice acquired such extraordinary stridency and his screams became so ear-piercing, that the Princess reluctantly banished him to the outer court of the Tabernacle.

Of four-footed pets, the Princess has three favourite cats, four favourite ponies, and one favourite mare. Her cats are said to be remarkably large, handsome, longhaired Angoras, of brownish black colour, with an occasional mixture of dark tan in their splendid ruff and tails. The names of these beauties are Bobby, Jock, and Ruff, and the Princess brought them up from their earliest kittenhood. The cats, however, are by no means so conspicuous at Sandringham as the dogs, of which the Princess has over threescore. Mr. Jessop says:

When in residence it is Her Royal Highness's usual practice to visit the kennels every morning, accompanied by her daughters and guests. Her dress covered with a large white apron, she is followed by Brunsdon, carrying two baskets filled with small square pieces of bread; the dogs, to the number of sixty or seventy, are then let loose in one of the small grasscovered enclosures, and the Princess feeds every dog in its turn. Needless to say, she is occasionally almost overwhelmed with their caresses. The Princess names all her dogs herself, and knows each one by its proper name.

The Sandringham stables have accommodation for about sixty horses. Mr. Jessop says :

"Viva," a very handsome bay mare, 15.2 in height, is no less than twenty-one years of age, although time has seemingly passed very lightly over her pretty head. This is in all probability due to the thoughtful care of the Royal mistress, who has ridden her for the past sixteen years. "Viva" has been a great

traveller, having made many continental journeys; among other notable excursions may be mentioned that to France on the occasion of the wedding of H.R.H. the Duc d'Aumale. She invariably accompanies the Princess to Ascot, Goodwood, and the other race meetings.

Besides Viva, the Queen has four favourite ponies :

"Bena," "Huffy," Beau," and "Belle." They are exceedingly handsome, spirited little fellows, about an average of thirteen hands in height, and of a bright bay colour. They are also driven singly and in tandems by Her Royal Highness.

His visit to the ponies naturally led Mr. Jessop to speak concerning the relations between the lady of Sandringham and the human pets on the estate. He leads up to it by speaking of the Princess's pony-cart, which is known as the Blues cart, on account of its cushions being made of the colour blue with red cordings:

The cart itself has a body of a rich light oak colour, with red wheels, and springs picked out in blue. It has been used by the Princess for the last twenty-five years, and is usually drawn by "Huffy," who, with the cart, and, above all, his Royal mistress, is a most welcome and constant visitor to all cottages on the estate where sickness or sorrow exists.

This carriage is apparently a great Sandringham institution :

Picture to yourself (and if you lived near Sandringham you might see the original picture whenever the Royal family is in residence) our gracious Princess, assisted by her daughters or her Royal husband, picking up the dusty little dots of children from the roads, placing them in her own carriage until it is completely packed, and then duly delivering each at its own home, so that they may say they enjoyed a ride with her that day.

It is not only the little children to whom the Princess tenders her kindly ministrations :

"Sir," says a tenant of thirty years' standing, "I have known that royal lady leave a sick labourer's bedside at ten o'clock at night, go to her own home, take delicate things from her own dinner table, and bring them back herself to the sick man at nearly eleven o'clock at night."