Her first teacher was an old professor named Homokh, with whom she learned the grammar and to read easily. But this did not satisfy her. She wanted a thorough knowledge of Hungarian literature and engaged as her instructor Dr. Max Falk, at that time a journalist in Vienna. His methods were far less tedious than those of Homokh, and she began to read the best passages of Scripture, together with a history of the people. He also gave her for translation into Hungarian the French correspondence between Joseph Second of Austria and Catherine Second of Russia, published by Arnath, a task she found most delightful. Her tutor was charmed with her enthusiasm and the accuracy with which she performed her duties as pupil. One morning as she handed him her written translation, she said: “All day yesterday my time was taken up with audiences, and in the evening there was a court concert. After that I was so tired I went directly to bed, but no sooner had I lain down than I remembered my Hungarian translation had not been written. So I tore a leaf from the almanac that lay on a table beside my bed and did it there. Excuse the pencil.” It was not until May, 1857, however, that she made her first visit to Hungary. Her arrival was hailed with enthusiasm, and the young Queen was everywhere greeted with shouts of joy. An extensive tour of the country had been planned by the sovereigns, but a sad event forced them to abandon it. The Emperor and Empress had two children at this time, the little Archduchesses Sophie and Gisela. Scarcely had the court established itself in the royal palace at Ofen when word was received of the illness of the two-year-old Sophie. The physicians’ first reports were reassuring, but on reaching Debreczin, May 28, the despatches announced a change for the worse. The anxious parents hastened back to Budapest, where on the next evening they heard that their oldest child was dead. Elizabeth left Hungary with tears in her eyes. Her first great sorrow had befallen her on her first visit among the Magyars, and it may have been that grief attached her still more closely to this people whom in after years she loved so well and by whom she was adored as a sovereign and reverenced as a guardian angel. Chapter VII Birth of Crown Prince Rudolf Not only the Emperor and his family but the whole nation were anxious for an heir to the throne, and the disappointment was great when on May 5, 1855, the Empress gave birth to a daughter, who was called Sophie Dorothea, after the Emperor’s mother. Elizabeth was too young and inexperienced to understand this, though she could not fail to read the evidences of it in the faces of those about her. Still greater dissatisfaction greeted the birth of a second daughter, Gisela, in July, 1856. This daughter was married in 1873 to Prince Leopold of Bavaria, second son of the present Prince Regent.