Throughout the year 1893 the King was busily employed in other ways also. In March he paid a formal visit to the Public Record Office to inspect some of the priceless national manuscripts deposited there, and in May he had the satisfaction of seeing that great enterprise which he had himself originated, the Imperial Institute, inaugurated in State by his Royal Mother. It was at the Institute that Mr. Gladstone was hissed by some unmannerly persons, to the great annoyance of the King, who never concealed the strong respect and esteem in which he held both Mr. and Mrs. Gladstone. It is interesting also to record that in March of this year the Queen, who was accompanied by her son, was received by the Pope in private audience. The interview lasted about an hour. The official announcement was made, appropriately enough in May, of the betrothal of the King’s son, then Duke of York, to Princess May of Teck. It is recorded in the late Duchess of Teck’s _Life_ that Prince George proposed to Princess May on 3rd May 1893, at Sheen Lodge, which for some time had been occupied by the Duke and Duchess of Fife. Both the bride and her mother agreed that the trousseau should be entirely of home workmanship. “I am determined,” said the Duchess of Teck, “that all the silk shall come from England, all the flannel from Wales, all the tweeds from Scotland, and every yard of lace and poplin from Ireland.” The wedding gown was woven at Spitalfields, and was of silver and white brocade, the design being of roses, shamrock, and thistles. The bridal veil--the same which had been worn by the bride’s mother on her wedding day in 1866--was of the finest Honiton lace, designed in a sequence of cornucopiæ filled with roses, thistles, and shamrock. [Illustration: QUEEN VICTORIA AND THE DUKE AND DUCHESS OF CORNWALL AND YORK _From a Photograph by Hughes and Mullins, Ryde_] The time of the short engagement was filled with preparations of all kinds, and from a letter written by Mrs. Dalrymple, and quoted in the Duchess of Teck’s _Life_, we obtain a good idea of how the days passed by at White Lodge:--