Presently we saw the Queen's little pony-carriage pass along beyond the windows with the Empress Frederick, and the Grand Duke and Duchess Serge walking beside it, and the Indians behind. Then in a little while the Empress Frederick came hurrying back alone, and almost directly came my summons. Countess Perponcher, her lady in waiting, took me up through the Long Corridor, past the entrance to the Queen's rooms on one side, and Gordon's Bible, in its glass case, on the other, till we turned to the left, and I was in a small sitting-room, where a lady, gray-haired and in black, came forward to meet me.... We talked for about 50 minutes:--of German books and Universities--Harnack--Renan, for whom she had the greatest admiration--Strauss, of whom she told me various interesting things--German colonies, that she thought were "all nonsense"--Dreyfus, who in her eyes is certainly innocent--reaction in France--the difference between the Greek Church in Russia and the Greek Church in Greece, the hopes of Greece, and the freeing of Crete. It is evident that her whole heart is with Greece and her daughter there [the young Queen Sophia, on whose character recently deciphered documents have thrown so strong a light], and she spoke bitterly, as she always does, about the English hanging-back, and the dawdling of the European Concert. Then she described how she read _George Tressady_ aloud to her invalid daughter till the daughter begged her to stop, lest she should cry over it all night--she said charming things of _Helbeck_, talked of Italy, D'Annunzio, quoted "my dear old friend Minghetti" as to the fundamental paganism in the Italian mind, asked me to write my name in her book, and to come and see her in Berlin--and it was time to go.... She is a very attractive, sensitive, impulsive woman, more charming than I had imagined, and, perhaps, less intellectual--altogether the very woman to set up the backs of Bismarck and his like. Never was there a more thorough Englishwoman! I found myself constantly getting her out of focus, by that confusion of mind which made one think of her as German. And to my father I wrote: The Empress began by asking after Uncle Matt, and nothing could have been kinder and more sympathetic than her whole manner. But of course Bismarck hated her. She is absolutely English, parliamentary, and anti-despotic.... When I ventured to say in bidding her Good-by, that I had often felt great admiration and deep sympathy for her, which is true--she threw up her hands with a little sad or bitter gesture--"Oh!--admiration!--for _me_!"--as if she knew very well what it was to be conscious of the reverse. A touching, intelligent, impulsive woman, she seemed to me--no doubt often not a wise one--but very attractive.