absorbed interest every detail in the lives of the ever-ramifying cousinhood.  And she tasted to the full both the joys and the pains of family affection.  She took a particular delight in her grandchildren, to whom she showed an indulgence which their parents had not always enjoyed, though, even to her grandchildren, she could be, when the occasion demanded it, severe.  The eldest of them, the little Prince Wilhelm of Prussia, was a remarkably headstrong child; he dared to be impertinent even to his grandmother; and once, when she told him to bow to a visitor at Osborne, he disobeyed her outright.  This would not do:  the order was sternly repeated, and the naughty boy, noticing that his grandmama had suddenly turned into a most terrifying lady, submitted his will to hers, and bowed very low indeed.

It would have been well if all the Queen’s domestic troubles could have been got over as easily.  Among her more serious distresses was the conduct of the Prince of Wales.  The young man was now independent and married; he had shaken the parental yoke from his shoulders; he was positively beginning to do as he liked.  Victoria was much perturbed, and her worst fears seemed to be justified when in 1870 he appeared as a witness in a society divorce case.  It was clear that the heir to the throne had been mixing with people of whom she did not at all approve.  What was to be done?  She saw that it was not only her son that was to blame—­that it was the whole system of society; and so she despatched a letter to Mr. Delane, the editor of The Times, asking him if he would “frequently write articles pointing out the immense danger and evil of the wretched frivolity and levity of the views and lives of the Higher Classes.”  And five years later Mr. Delane did write an article upon that very subject.  Yet it seemed to have very little effect.

Ah! if only the Higher Classes would learn to live as she lived in the domestic sobriety of her sanctuary at Balmoral!  For more and more did she find solace and refreshment in her Highland domain; and twice yearly, in the spring and in the autumn, with a sigh of relief, she set her face northwards, in spite of the humble protests of Ministers, who murmured vainly in the royal ears that to transact the affairs of State over an interval of six hundred miles added considerably to the cares of government.  Her ladies, too, felt occasionally a slight reluctance to set out, for, especially in the early days, the long pilgrimage was not without its drawbacks.  For many years the Queen’s conservatism forbade the continuation of the railway up Deeside, so that the last stages of the journey had to be accomplished in carriages.  But, after all, carriages had their good points; they were easy, for instance, to get in and out of, which was an important consideration, for the royal train remained for long immune from modern conveniences, and when it drew up, on some border moorland, far from any platform, the highbred dames were obliged